m the tree. They stood, sadly, in a
puddle. The two pigs were asleep under the porch.

"Upstairs, in the hall-way, Silvers was furious."

The clerk with a blonde moustache gave here a wild scream of
disappointment. He madly hurled the novel with the picture on the cover
from him. He stood up and said: "Damn!"

THE VICTORY OF THE MOON.

The Strong Man of the Hills lost his wife. Immediately he went abroad,
calling aloud. The people all crouched afar in the dark of their huts,
and cried to him when he was yet a long distance away: "No, no, great
chief, we have not even seen the imprint of your wife's sandal in the
sand. If we had seen it, you would have found us bowed down in worship
before the marks of her ten glorious brown toes, for we are but poor
devils of Indians, and the grandeur of the sun rays on her hair would
have turned our eyes to dust."

"Her toes are not brown. They are pink," said the Strong Man from the
Hills. "Therefore do I believe that you speak the truth when you say you
have not seen her, good little men of the valley. In this matter of her
great loveliness, however, you speak a little too strongly. As she is no
longer among my possessions, I have no mind to hear her praised.
Whereabouts is the best man of you?"

None of them had stomach for this honour at the time. They surmised that
the Strong Man of the Hills had some plan for combat, and they knew
that the best of them would have in this encounter only the strength of
the meat in the grip of the fire. "Great King," they said, in one voice,
"there is no best man here."

"How is this?" roared the Strong Man. "There must be one who excels. It
is a law. Let him step forward then."

But they solemnly shook their heads. "There is no best man here."

The Strong Man turned upon them so furiously that many fell to the
ground. "There must be one. Let him step forward." Shivering, they
huddled together and tried, in their fear, to thrust each other toward
the Strong Man.

At this time a young philosopher approached the throng slowly. The
philosophers of that age were all young men in the full heat of life.
The old greybeards were, for the most part, very stupid, and were so
accounted.

"Strong Man from the Hills," said the young philosopher, "go to yonder
brook and bathe. Then come and eat of this fruit. Then gaze for a time
at the blue sky and the green earth. Afterward I have something to say
to you."

"You are not so wise that I a