of the ports we could see a blue-jacketed steward polishing a plate.

"Has Faure formed a cabinet yet?" shouted one passenger.

The answer we gave him was lost in the chorus of cheers. Some one
weighted a copy of the ship's log, and threw it aboard our tug.

But while all this was very pleasant, it was not enough. The ship's
officers promised to lower a companion-ladder for our men to go aboard.

A long wait. No ladder. Our own skipper solved the problem by ordering
his men to throw up a twenty-foot wooden ladder--a fragile thing. Such
roars in English and counter-roars in French as there were while that
ladder was being arranged!

"Take a couple of bights of that line, and make it fast on the third
rung, you three-fingered blacksmith!" yelled our mate.

[Illustration: ONE OF THE NERVE-TICKLING DETAILS OF THE HUNT.]

The Frenchmen guessed what he meant. At last the ladder was up, resting
on our deck, and its end scraping the _Gascogne_'s side. There was great
danger that at any moment the top end might catch on an iron plate as
our rolling tug pushed it upward. Then the great weight of the tug would
crush the ladder into matchwood. No matter; that was one of the
nerve-tickling details of the newspaper steamship hunt. Up ran two
reporters and an artist, one after the other, while men stood by to
throw them life-buoys if the ladder should be smashed.

But they got aboard all right. Afterward came the interviewing, the
hurried writing of copy, the telegraphing from a secret place in Staten
Island out of the reach of news thieves; but all that is the mere
recital of how we carried home our game.

THE YOUNG BEACH-COMBERS OF MONMOUTH.

BY AGNES CARR SAGE.

"I say he sha'n't come in!"

"And I tell you he shall!"

The boys' voices rose high and angry; their attitude was threatening;
and at the sound of contention a bevy of other barefooted urchins came
scampering over the damp sand, shouting, "Hi! a scrap, a scrap!" and
eager to see fair play.

"What's it all about?" inquired Ned Eaton, a good-looking youth, rather
better dressed than his companions.

"It's about little Jem Ferguson," spoke up the shorter and stockier of
the belligerents. "Kit Bandy here says he oughtn't to be let into the
beach-combing, and I hold it's mean as cramp-fish to bar him out just
because he's weak and pindlin' and no account in a boat."

"So it is, so it is," chorused the listening youngsters.

But Kit put in quickly, "Al