becoming a bicycling centre that he at once established a
branch of his business there, and appointed Pop Miller his agent.

Best of all was a visit from Tom Burgess, who came on from New York, not
only to take part in the parade, but to unfold the gorgeous plan he had
evolved for the summer vacation, and in which he wished his fellow
Rangers to join. He first confided it privately to Will Rogers, and when
he concluded, the latter exclaimed:

"Tom Burgess, it seems almost too good to be true, but with the
experience we've already gained in _Blue Billows_ I believe we can carry
it through. If we only can, it will be the biggest thing the Rangers
have undertaken yet."

[TO BE CONTINUED.]

GREAT MEN'S SONS.

BY ELBRIDGE S. BROOKS.

THE SON OF SHAKESPEARE.

Many years ago had you been, let us say, a tinker travelling with your
wares or a knight riding by, you might have passed, upon a small arched
bridge that spanned a little river in the heart of "Merrie England," a
small boy, hanging over the railing, now watching the rippling water, or
with eager eyes looking along the roadway that ran between green meadows
toward that distant London, from which, perhaps, you were tramping or
riding.

[Illustration: "HAVE YOU SEEN MY FATHER AS YOU CAME ALONG?"]

I think, as you passed, you would have looked twice at that small boy on
the bridge, whether you were low-down tinker or high-born knight. For he
was a bright, sweet-faced little ten-year-old in his quaint
sixteenth-century costume, and the look of expectancy in his eyes might,
as it fell upon your face, have shaped itself into the spoken question,
"Have you seen my father as you came along?"

Whereupon, had you been the lordly knight you might have said, "And who
might your father be, little one?" Or had you been the low-down tramping
tinker you would probably have grunted out: "Hoi, zurs! An' who be'est
yure feythur, lad?"

To either of which questions that small boy on the bridge would have
answered in some surprise--for he supposed that, surely, all men knew
his father--"Why, Master William Shakespeare, the player in London."

For that little river is the Avon; that small bridge of arches is
Clopton's mill-bridge, that small boy is Hamnet, the only son of Master
William Shakespeare, of Henley Street, in Stratford-on-Avon. And in the
year 1595 the name of William Shakespeare was already known in London as
one of the Lord Chamberlain's company of actors,