ng fellows. "Down with the crowd to the
lower regions! Come on with your constitution and by-laws! Hold fast to
law and order! Give us liberty, or death--pumpkin pies and lily-white
hands! Hurrah! On to the kitchen!"

With mock circumspection they were forcing couples to pair off; but
the level-headed matrons soon arranged matters more to the purpose.
The various branches of work were assigned to willing hands that only
awaited the signal for action.

Great was the consternation of the mutineers when the "boss" appeared
in the dismantled kitchen and ordered them all off the premises. In vain
they protested, laying the blame on first one and then another. Their
day of grace was ended and no quarter shown. Wilfully and from sheer
love of bickering, they had offended all sense of justice and propriety,
and in unbroken ranks they must go.

When the fiat had irretrievably gone forth, they showed again the claws
and the cloven foot. The "cook-lady" said she "didn't hafter work
nohow;" she reckoned she could "git along." The maids and the waiters
took the cue and were equally independent. But though paid their wages
in full, they were discharged without "a recommend"; and this, in the
height of the season, was no small privation.

"Teach them a lesson!" muttered the proprietor with satisfaction.
"Serves them right! I'm rather glad of the row."

Cheerily the guests fell to work in their several departments, and if
more than one match for life was not made among the young people, it
was from no lack of genuine admiration in their new roles. The lads
and lassies were happy and rosy and busy at their self-appointed tasks.
The white-coated waiters were dubbed "No. 47," "No. 50," and so on, and
right nobly they served the well-spread tables, which lacked nothing,
not even the boon of contentment, which so helps digestion.

The flushed matrons behind big kitchen aprons, with diamonds locked away
in the hotel safe, took turns to perfection. Many guests took their
ease, and were mere lookers-on at the frolic; but a right goodly company
put their shoulders to the wheel.

When the new corps of "help" were installed, they found the hotel clean
and tidy from attic to cellar, and everything in its proper place.

The episode was one to be remembered by the malcontents, who had had a
severe lesson; by the host, who had seen a genuinely good side of human
nature; and the ladies who had so nobly stepped into the breach, learned
during