m,
Starting-points, as guides for him.

Ted put in the knife with glee;
First he cut from A to B!
Then he cut from C to D!!
Then he took the piece marked E!!!

Every cut was straight, he said,--
He would bet his curly head.
Such a perfect, born-and-bred
Geometric rogue was Ted.

[Illustration]

"CHAIRS TO MEND!"

BY ALEXANDER WAINWRIGHT.

The art of doing small things well has a good illustration in the humble
chair-mender of the London streets, who is also one of the most
interesting of out-door tradesmen.

He carries all his implements and materials with him. A very much worn
chair is thrown over one arm as an advertisement of his occupation, and
it is needed, for his cry, "Cha-ir-s to men-n-nd," is uttered in a
melancholy and indistinct, though penetrating, tone. Under the other arm
he usually has a bundle of cane, split into narrow ribbons.

His look is that of forlorn respectability; his hat is greasy, and
mapped with so many veins, caused by crushings, that it might have been
used as a chair or, at least, a foot-stool; around his neck he wears a
heavy cloth kerchief, and his long coat of by-gone fashion reaches
nearly to the ankles, which are covered by shabby gaiters. He walks
along at a very gentle pace and scans the windows of the houses for some
sign that his services are wanted.

[Illustration: "CHAIRS TO MEND!"]

Perhaps business is dull, but in the neighborhoods where there are
plenty of children he is pretty sure to find some work. Cane-seated
chairs are durable, but they will not stand the rough usage of those
little boys and girls who treat them as step-ladders and stamp upon
them. It often happens that a neat English house-maid appears at the
area railings with a chair that has a big, ragged hole in the seat,
through which Master Tommy has fallen, with his boots on, in an effort
to reach the gooseberry jam on the pantry shelf.

Master Tommy probably looks on while the repairs are being made, and is
much interested by the dexterity with which the mender does his work.
The old and broken canes are cut away, and the new strips are woven into
a firm fabric, with little eight-sided openings left in it. The
overlapping ends of the ribbons are trimmed with a sharp knife, and the
chair-seat is as good as new.

It seems so easy that Tommy thinks he could have done it himself; but
when he experiments with a slip of cane that the mender gives him, he
finds that chair-m