n her bulkheads, the captain
said. There was a hole as big as a barn door in the Vulcan. The pumps
were going night and day."

Mrs. General looked at Mrs. Assistant as the light began to dawn on
both of them.

"Then it wasn't the engines, but the pumps," she said.

"And it wasn't the steam, but the fire," screamed Mrs. Assistant. "Oh,
dear, how that captain lied, and I thought him such a nice man, too.
Oh, I shall go into hysterics, I know I shall."

"I wouldn't if I were you," said the sensible Mrs. General, who was a
strong-minded woman; "besides, it is too late. We're all safe now. I
think both captains were pretty sensible men. Evidently married, both
of 'em."

Which was quite true.

THE DEPARTURE OF CUB MCLEAN.

Of course no one will believe me when I say that Mellish was in every
respect, except one, an exemplary citizen and a good-hearted man. He
was generous to a fault and he gave many a young fellow a start in life
where a little money or a few encouraging words were needed. He drank,
of course, but he was a connoisseur in liquors, and a connoisseur never
goes in for excess. Few could tell a humorous story as well as Mellish,
and he seldom dealt in chestnuts. No man can be wholly bad who never
inflicts an old story on his friends, locating it on some acquaintance
of his, and alleging that it occurred the day before.

If I wished to write a heart-rending article on the evils of gambling,
Mellish would be the man I would go to for my facts and for the moral
of the tale. He spent his life persuading people not to gamble. He
never gambled himself, he said. But if no attention was paid to his
advice, why then he furnished gamblers with the most secluded and
luxurious gambling rooms in the city. It was supposed that Mellish
stood in with the police, which was, of course, a libel. The idea of
the guardians of the city standing in with a gambler or a gambling
house! The statement was absurd on the face of it. If you asked any
policeman in the city where Mellish's gambling rooms were, you would
speedily learn that not one of them had ever even heard of the place.
All this goes to show how scandalously people will talk, and if
Mellish's rooms were free from raids, it was merely Mellish's good
luck, that was all. Anyhow, in Mellish's rooms you could have a quiet,
gentlemanly game for stakes about as high as you cared to go, and you
were reasonably sure there would be no fuss and that your name would
not