WHEN YOU ARE TOWED HOME.

ALTHOUGH no mathematician has ever yet been able to com

pute accurately all of the things that can happen to a motor car, they may properly be divided into two grand divisions, which are: Those you can repair yourself and those you cannot.

Carbolic acid from a neighboring drug store has been known to resuscitate a drooping set of batteries; and if they are too far gone the automobilist can drink it himself and thus end all of his troubles. Spark plugs are of various denominations, and when one doesn't work another may. It is possible, with a large assortment of wrenches, an extensive vocabulary and a welldeveloped set of intercostal muscles, to lie on one's back in the dust for an hour or so and adjust the differential gear; or, by prayer and fasting and enough talcum powder, replace an inner tube.

But when your cylinder head is cracked, your vibrator coil blows out, your crank-shaft tries to make both ends meet, or your piston-rod or flywheel works loose, then you hoist signals of distress, calculate your rations and wait, with all of the philosophic calm you can muster on short notice, for a "tow."

After awhile some fellow, who has at least a semblance of a heart in his manly breast, toots along, throws you a line and you are off.

At first you experience nothing but a sense of exultation to think that relief has at last come. Then the humiliation, the peculiar disgrace of your position, begins to strike in.

It is, of course, broad daylight. Never before have you realized the comfortable security of a dark and moonless night. Now it is as if your very soul, with everything in it that you have hitherto regarded as sacred, was exposed to the vulgar gaze of the multitude. An hour before, as, with vibratory superciliousness you flew by a trolley car, your bosom swelled with pride.

Now these plebeians turn to look at you with an unconfined cheerfulness, as you are yanked slowly by.

But, after all, perhaps your keenest agony is caused by your equals. Apparently everyone you have ever known has been waiting to see you pass. Jones, who remarked only last week with polite insolence that your machine was no good, waves his hand at you in fiendish triumph. Smith, who keeps horses and to whom you have confided with mendacious warmth the interesting fact that you never have any trouble, smiles as he greets you with a sympathetic sneer. Ladies whom you know casually bow gingerly, as if you were some public criminal, and then turn to each other with suppressed mirth. The eldest daughter of your intimate friend smirks at you blandly.

But it is only when, several hours later, you face your wife, that the last depth of misery is reached. You realize, as you look at her silent and reproachful face, that she has heard the awful

news.

"Darling," you murmur, “all the world has gone back on me. Only tell me that you still cherish some atom of respect for me.” And then your wife replies, with averted gaze:

"After you have taken a bath, my dear, I will talk to you."

IDLENESS SAT IN THE WILDERNESS.

IDLENESS sat in the wilderness.

And beyond was the great nation, laboring and sweating, nervous, restless, transfixed under the bondage of toil.

Idleness put on her gayest garb, and a band of merrymakers came out through the gate of the great nation and wooed her. They lay at her feet, and the homes that they once knew, knew them no more.

But Idleness sighed. It was not for these that she longed.

She looked beyond the gate of the great nation and saw a man bending over his labor. Absorbed in his task, his eyes never wandered. For years Idleness had beckoned, but he had not seen her.

One day the man slept.

And when he awoke his face was turned toward the place where Idleness sat in the wilderness. And he thought that all the beauty of the world was in those eyes, and in those arms held out to him.

But the man was stubborn, and went to his work.

Still, he dreamed.

He dreamed of her whom he had seen, and there were times when he looked out beyond the gate and saw the figure of Idleness, always looking at him, always beseeching him with tender eyes.

The man said to himself that he was doomed. He knew, somehow, that the time would come when he would leave his work and go out to this pleading figure. And he quailed at the thought. All his energy would be wasted, all his toil go for naught.

And the time came.

Idleness laughed in her new joy, and pointed to the impotcnt wretches at her feet. "These are my victims," she cried. "But you-you are my master. Why have you delayed so long? Know you not that I love you? I know that I may never conquer you, and it is because of this that I am ready to be your slave."

And the man wandered with Idleness through the fields.

They plucked flowers by the wayside and sat in the cool shade of the great tree that nodded down to them from the heights above. The music of the waters stirred the soul of the man within him, and great thoughts came surging to his awakened mind. His eyes beheld visions, and he came to know

Idleness in all her wayward moods. Great Nature gathered him to her heart, and there came an hour when the man looked up at the sounding dome of heaven, and said, even as one in a dream: "And this I thought my doom! How little I knew!"

The next day he went back to work.

Idleness sat in the wilderness.

And beyond was the great nation, toiling and sweating.

And there came a man out of the gate. On his face Power had put her mark, and as he strode, stalwart and erect, toward the place where Idleness sat in the wilderness all the people made obeisance to him. Among them none was greater than he, and Idleness bowed her head before his glance.

"My master," she said humbly, "I sought you out in the days of your youth, and you came to me. It was my love that made you what you are, yet you knew well that you must not dwell with me too long, and so you went back. But when you needed me you came again to me. And now once more you stand before me? What would you?"

And the man of power stretched his hand toward the great nation, toiling and sweating under the sun of heaven. "Save my people," he said.

WHAT IT MEANT.

HAVE lately," said Winkleton to his friend Plodderly, "be

come very much interested in the subject of the education of children. I am a parent, as you are, and I think it is the duty of every parent to provide suitable paths of knowledge for children's minds to travel in."

Plodderly made no reply.

"My boy," continued Winkleton, "is just six years old. I

started him in at the kindergarten at three, wishing to give him. the full advantage of all the educational blessings that this country affords, at as early an age as possible. He has now finished this three years' course, and while he looks a little peaked, he has already shown promise of a wonderful mind."

"I have no doubt of it," said Plodderly.

"I have been looking up the matter," went on Winkleton, "and I shall push him right ahead through the primary with all possible speed. The spare time he is home he is occupied with some of the latest educational games, so that he is practically not losing a moment except for his meals. When he is a little older, and has gotten through the elements, I shall begin to ground him in History, Physics, Latin and Greek, Higher Mathematics, Hydrostatics, Biology, Psychology, Modern Languages, Biblical Lore, Geology, Statics and Dynamics, Astronomy, Conic Sections, Metaphysics, Sociology, Political Economy and any other branch that in the meantime may have been discovered. What are you doing with your boy?"

"Nothing," said Plodderly. "He has never been to school. He just fools around. At present he is building a dog house." "And do you intend," said Winkleton, with a sneer, "always to keep him in such dense ignorance?"

"I hope to," replied Plodderly. "You see, I am in hopes that some day that boy may do something really worth while."

A CARD.

TO the man who has asked me for a small loan.

My Friend: You have asked me for the loan of a certain amount, stating that you needed it only for a short time, and that you would pay me back by a certain date.

In reply to your request, I might state that I happened to