w that the things that they would say about her would be
more than I could bear. We plunged forward, and a moment later, rounding
a curve, our headlights came full upon the outlines of the old farm with
its hideous false facade. I could not resist glancing at her, though I
said nothing. Her eyes were on her hands, held loosely in her lap. She
did not look at me until, with another lurch, we had swung about again,
and all but the road in front of us was drawn back swiftly into
obscurity. I found that she had turned towards me then, and, as I laid
one hand across her arm, I felt her relax to a relieved trembling.
Before us the night crowded down over the countryside, masking its
ugliness like a film, through which our lights cut a white fissure
towards town.

SHELBY[20]

By CHARLES HANSON TOWNE

(From _The Smart Set_)

When I sit down to write of Shelby--Lucien Atterwood Shelby, the author,
whose romantic books you must have read, or at least heard of--I find
myself at some difficulty to know where to begin. I knew him so well at
one time--so little at another; and men, like houses, change with the
years. Today's tenant in some old mansion may not view the garden as you
did long ago; and the friend of a man's later years may not hold the
same opinions the acquaintance of an earlier period once formed.

I think it best to begin with the time I met Shelby on the newspaper
where we both, as cub reporters, worked. That was exactly twenty years
ago.

The boys didn't take to Shelby. He was too dapper, too good-looking, and
he always carried a stick, as he called it; we were unregenerate enough
to say cane. And, most loathsome of all, he had an English
accent--though he was born in Illinois, we afterwards learned. You can
imagine how this accent nettled us, for we were all unassuming
lads--chaps, Shelby would have called us--and we detested "side."

But how this new acquisition to the staff could write! It bothered us to
see him hammer out a story in no time, for most of us had to work over
our copy, and we made Hanscher, the old managing editor, raving mad
sometimes with our dilatoriness. I am afraid that in those sadly distant
days we frequented too many bars, and no doubt we wasted some of our
energy and decreased our efficiency. But every young reporter drank more
or less; and when Shelby didn't mix with us, and we discovered that he
took red wine with his dinner at Mouqin's--invariably alone--we hated
him m