Grimshaw shrugged and went into the street. The crowds paid no
attention to him--but then, they never had. A dog sniffed at his
heels, whined, and thrust a cold nose into his hand.

He went to his house. "I'll ask Marie," he thought.... She was sitting
before a mirror, her hands clasped under her chin, smiling at
herself.... She had put a flower in her hair. Her lips were parted.
She smiled at some secret thought. Grimshaw watched her a moment; then
with a leap of his heart he touched her shoulder. And she did not
turn, did not move....

He knew! He put his fingers on her cheek, her neck, the shining braids
of her coarse black hair. Then he walked quickly out of the house, out
of the village, toward the desert.

Two men joined him. One of them said: "I have just died." They went on
together, their feet whispering in the sand, walking in a globe of
darkness until the stars came out--then they saw one another's pale
faces and eager, frightened eyes. Others joined them. And others. Men.
Women. A child. Some wept and some murmured and some laughed.

"Is this death?"

"Where now, brother?"

Grimshaw thought: "The end. What next? Beauty. Love. Illusion.
Forgetfulness."

He clasped his hands behind his back, lifted his face to the stars,
walked steadily forward with that company of the dead, into the
desert, out of the story at last.

COMET [Published originally under title, "The Comet."]

By SAMUEL A. DERIEUX

From _American Magazine_

No puppy ever came into the world under more favourable conditions
than Comet. He was descended from a famous family of pointers. Both
his mother and father were champions. Before he opened his eyes, while
he was still crawling about over his brothers and sisters, blind as
puppies are at birth, Jim Thompson, Mr. Devant's kennel master, picked
him out.

"That's the best un in the bunch."

When he was only three weeks old he pointed a butterfly that lit in
the yard in front of his nose.

"Come here, Molly," yelled Jim to his wife. "Pointed--the little
cuss!"

When Thompson started taking the growing pups out of the yard, into
the fields to the side of the Devants' great southern winter home, Oak
Knob, it was Comet who strayed farthest from the man's protecting
care. And when Jim taught them all to follow when he said "Heel," to
drop when he said "Drop," and to stand stock-still when he said "Ho,"
he learned far more quickly than the others.

At six months he set his