is a base caitiff!"

Had a bomb been dropped in the middle of the room, it could not have
created a greater sensation than the words of Cassandra.

"What?" cried several voices at once. "A caitiff?"

"A caitiff with a capital K," retorted Cassandra. "I know that, because
while he was telling his story I was listening to it with one ear and
looking forward into the middle of next week with the other--I mean the
other eye--and I saw--"

"Yes, you saw?" cried Cleopatra.

"I saw that he was deceiving us. Mark my words, ladies, he is a base
caitiff," replied Cassandra--"a base caitiff."

"What did you see?" cried Elizabeth, excitedly.

"This," said Cassandra, and she began a narration of future events which I
must defer to the next chapter. Meanwhile his associates were endeavoring
to restore the evaporated portions of the prostrated Kidd's spirit anatomy
by the use of a steam-atomizer, but with indifferent success. Kidd's
training had not fitted him for an intellectual combat with superior
women, and he suffered accordingly.

[Illustration: KIDD'S COMPANIONS ENDEAVORING TO RESTORE EVAPORATED
PORTIONS OF HIS ANATOMY WITH A STEAM-ATOMIZER]

X

A WARNING ACCEPTED

"It is with no desire to interrupt my friend Cassandra unnecessarily,"
said Mrs. Noah, as the prophetess was about to narrate her story, "that I
rise to beg her to remember that, as an ancestress of Captain Kidd, I hope
she will spare a grandmother's feelings, if anything in the story she is
about to tell is improper to be placed before the young. I have been so
shocked by the stories of perfidy and baseness generally that have been
published of late years, that I would interpose a protest while there is
yet time if there is a line in Cassandra's story which ought to be
withheld from the public; a protest based upon my affection for posterity,
and in the interests of morality everywhere."

"You may rest easy upon that score, my dear Mrs. Noah," said the
prophetess. "What I have to say would commend itself, I am sure, even to
the ears of a British matron; and while it is as complete a demonstration
of man's perfidy as ever was, it is none the less as harmless a little
tale as the Dottie Dimple books or any other more recent study of New
England character."

"Thank you for the load your words have lifted from my mind," said Mrs.
Noah, settling back in her chair, a satisfied expression upon her gentle
countenance. "I hope you will understand why