ed that I was going directly away from home. I rested
awhile and then returned.

On the street I met the stage manager and the tall, dark man just as
they were coming out of the Moss Agate saloon. They said they were very
sorry to notice that I got up and came away at a point in the programme
where they had introduced what they had regarded as the best feature of
the show.

This incident had a great deal to do with turning my attention in the
direction of literature instead of the drama.

But I am glad to notice that many of the horrors of the drama are being
gradually eliminated as the country gets more thickly settled, and the
gory tragedy of a few years ago is gradually giving place to the
refining influences of the "Tin Soldier" and "A Rag Baby."

FAVORED A HIGHER FINE.

THE BOY WHO MADE A DOLLAR BY A WHIPPING.

BILL NYE.

Will Taylor, the son of the present American consul at Marseilles, was a
good deal like other boys while at school in his old home in Hudson,
Wis. One day he called his father into the library and said:

"Pa, I don't like to tell you, but the teacher and I have had trouble."

"What's the matter now?"

"Well, I cut one of the desks a little with my knife, and the teacher
says I've got to pay $1 or take a lickin'!"

"Well, why don't you take the lickin' and say nothing more about it? I
can stand considerable physical pain, so long as it visits our family in
that form. Of course it is not pleasant to be flogged, but you have
broken a rule of the school, and I guess you'll have to stand it. I
presume that the teacher will in wrath remember mercy and avoid
disabling you, so that you can't get your coat on any more."

"But, pa, I feel mighty bad over it, already, and if you would pay my
fine, I'd never do it again. A dollar isn't much to you, pa, but it's a
heap to a boy who hasn't a cent. If I could make a dollar as easy as you
can, pa, I'd never let my little boy get flogged that way to save a
dollar. If I had a little feller that got licked bekuz I didn't put up
for him I'd hate the sight of money always. I'd feel as ef every dollar
I had in my pocket had been taken out of my little kid's back."

"Well, now, I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll give you a dollar to save
you from punishment this time, but if anything of this kind ever occurs
again I'll hold you while the teacher licks you and then I'll get the
teacher to hold you while I lick you. That's the way I feel about that.