ur that
covered him.

And, as he rested for a moment on the bottom, deep down through the clear
waters of the lagoon where he lay prone, I could see, as the current
stirred his long, black hair, the third eye looking up at us, glassy,
unwinking, horrible.

* * * * *

A bubble or two, like globules of quicksilver, were detached from the
burnished skin of air that clothed him, and came glittering upward.

Suddenly there was a flash; a flurrying cloud of blue mud; and Grue was
gone.

* * * * *

After a long while I turned around in the muteness of my despair. And
slowly froze.

For the pretty waitress, becomingly pale, was gathered in Kemper's arms,
her cheek against his shoulder. Neither seemed to be aware of me.

"Darling," he said, in the imbecile voice of a man in love, "why do you
tremble so when I am here to protect you? Don't you love and trust me?"

"Oo--h--yes," she sighed, pressing her cheek closer to his shoulder.

I shoved my hands into my pockets, passed them without noticing them, and
stepped ashore.

And there I sat down under a tree, with my back toward them, all alone
and face to face with the greatest grief of my life.

But which it was--the loss of her or the loss of Grue, I had not yet made
up my mind.

THE IMMORTAL

I

As everybody knows, the great majority of Americans, upon reaching the
age of natural selection, are elected to the American Institute of Arts
and Ethics, which is, so to speak, the Ellis Island of the Academy.

Occasionally a general mobilization of the Academy is ordered and, from
the teeming population of the Institute, a new Immortal is selected for
the American Academy of Moral Endeavor by the simple process of
blindfolded selection from _Who's Which_.

The motto of this most stately of earthly institutions is a peculiarly
modest, truthful, and unintentional epigram by Tupper:

"Unknown, I became Famous; Famous, I remain Unknown."

And so I found it to be the case; for, when at last I was privileged to
write my name, "Smith, Academician," I discovered to my surprise that I
knew none of my brother Immortals, and, more amazing still, none of them
had ever heard of me.

This latter fact became the more astonishing to me as I learned the
identity of the other Immortals.

Even the President of our great republic was numbered among these
Olympians. I had every right to suppose that he h