e courage to
abandon convictions, and extreme youth. If you lack anything it is perhaps
ballast, and here I might help you. Ring me up at any time, day or night,
and I will come to you, just as I used to do years ago when you were
beginning.

Think of me always as
Yours very sincerely,
WILLIAM WOOD.

_To Sir ARTHUR WING PINERO._

MY DEAR PINERO,--I am glad you liked my suggestion and are already at work
upon it. No one could handle it so well as you. I write now because it has
occurred to me that the proper place for Lord Scudamore to disown his
guilty wife and for her impassioned reply is not, as we had it, the spare
room, but the parlour.

I am, dear old fellow,
Always yours to command,
WILLIAM WOOD

Having written thus far, Mr. William Wood went to bed, perfectly at peace
with himself and the world.

* * * * *

[Illustration: _Friend (to Professor, whose lecture, "How to Stop the War,"
has just concluded)_. "CONGRATULATE YOU, OLD MAN--WENT SPLENDIDLY, AT ONE
TIME DURING THE AFTERNOON I WAS RATHER ANXIOUS FOR YOU."

_Professor._ "THANKS. BUT I DON'T KNOW WHY YOU SHOULD HAVE BEEN SO
CONCERNED ON MY BEHALF."

_Friend._ "WELL, A RUMOUR _DID_ GO ROUND THE ROOM THAT THE WAR WOULD BE
OVER BEFORE YOUR LECTURE." ]

* * * * *

THE GREAT BETRAYAL.

'Twas night, and near the Boreal cliff
The monarch in seclusion lay,
A wondrous human hieroglyph,
Worshipped from Chile to Cathay;
When lo! a cry, "Sire, up and fly!
The pirate ships are in the bay!"

"Begone, ye cravens," straight replied
The monarch with his eyes ablaze;
"No pirate on the ocean wide
Can fright me, for I know their ways.
Shall I do less in times of stress
Than soldiers who have earned My praise?

"Yet stay," he paused awhile, and then--
"Let messengers the country scour
On pain of death forbidding men
To speak, in hut or hall or tower,
Of what I said this night of dread,
Or where I spent its darkest hour."

Swift flew the minions to obey;
The wearied monarch slumbered late;
Yet, in the Capital next day,
Writ large upon his palace gate,
A mighty scroll to every soul
Blazoned the words that challenged Fate.

The monarch's rage surpassed all bounds
When of this treachery he read;
A price of several million pounds
Was placed upon the miscreant's head;
B