nnot heal; and they rely
upon it solely. Al Raschid administered justice, rewarding the
deserving, and punished whomsoever he disliked on the spot. He was
the originator of the short-story contest. Whenever he succoured any
chance pick-up in the bazaars he always made the succouree tell the
sad story of his life. If the narrative lacked construction, style,
and _esprit_ he commanded his vizier to dole him out a couple
of thousand ten-dollar notes of the First National Bank of the
Bosphorus, or else gave him a soft job as Keeper of the Bird
Seed for the Bulbuls in the Imperial Gardens. If the story was a
cracker-jack, he had Mesrour, the executioner, whack off his head.
The report that Haroun Al Raschid is yet alive and is editing
the magazine that your grandmother used to subscribe for lacks
confirmation.

And now follows the Story of the Millionaire, the Inefficacious
Increment, and the Babes Drawn from the Wood.

Young Howard Pilkins, the millionaire, got his money
ornithologically. He was a shrewd judge of storks, and got in on
the ground floor at the residence of his immediate ancestors,
the Pilkins Brewing Company. For his mother was a partner in
the business. Finally old man Pilkins died from a torpid liver,
and then Mrs. Pilkins died from worry on account of torpid
delivery-waggons--and there you have young Howard Pilkins with
4,000,000; and a good fellow at that. He was an agreeable, modestly
arrogant young man, who implicitly believed that money could buy
anything that the world had to offer. And Bagdad-on-the-Subway for
a long time did everything possible to encourage his belief.

But the Rat-trap caught him at last; he heard the spring snap, and
found his heart in a wire cage regarding a piece of cheese whose
other name was Alice von der Ruysling.

The Von der Ruyslings still live in that little square about which
so much has been said, and in which so little has been done. To-day
you hear of Mr. Tilden's underground passage, and you hear Mr.
Gould's elevated passage, and that about ends the noise in the world
made by Gramercy Square. But once it was different. The Von der
Ruyslings live there yet, and they received _the first key ever made
to Gramercy Park_.

You shall have no description of Alice v. d. R. Just call up in your
mind the picture of your own Maggie or Vera or Beatrice, straighten
her nose, soften her voice, tone her down and then tone her up,
make her beautiful and unattainable--and you