Historical Newspapers of South Carolina

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9 CASTLES IN SPAIN. How fair »hey rla« Vrom hyuciuthtuo meadow-ground that Within the shade. By «now-<'i4|>ped belghta ot wild sierras made 1 ^ How gleaming white Those battlements beneath the morning light! How marbles show Their brilliancy against the eternal snow 1 How roof and spire Are daily ..indted to a flashing fire, And over all Folds of silken banner rise and tall I The court below Is moated with a stream of gentle flow, Whose crystal face Reduplicates the beauty of the place. The perfumed breeze Comes through the branches of fruit-laden trees. And song of bird, Flute-like and mellow, from the copse is hoard. With soothing sound Cool fountains scatter jewels all around, In dashing spray The rainbow bemls Its arch above our way. We enter there With bosom friends we bid our joys to share; We rest at ease; We go again at any time we please. From mortal eyes Were veiled the glories bright of Paradise, Yet there remain These glorious castles all our own—In Spain. —New York Home Journal. < THE GRAY STEER. ► i Twelve huutlred feet BQh-dial of the Lazy J Rauch ami nearly as broad—that cliff of divers hues which stands out from the wall of the canon of the Grand river. The opposite precipice serves the cowboys us gnomon or index to the hours of day, for its shadow sweeps over the stupendous, variegated face and marks the course of the sun through a sky that is always high is the them with innumerable aspen gulches aud brushy slopes draining down into the side canons. Quickening then horses, they pres ently rode into the green gloom of the gulch, where the quaking-aspens trembled over hidden springs. Here mighty hoofprints dinted deep the mud and the sodden trails. “Dere his track, fresh,” said Jim, stooping from his saddle over a print un clouded. A ledge of porphyry, lifty ; like a post-hole. “He lie close, some- feet deep, crowns the dial; often it looks like a strip of pink ribbon to the men below by the stream. Rut it was a glorious coronal,kindling in the first rays from the east, when Holden hailed it with uplifted eye and hand as he quirted his horse through the barway of the corral. “Sunup!” cried Holden, the young foreman, filled with the joy of the morning. He is the son of the presi dent of the cattle company; ho had come straight from college to the cow- cump, and the old stroke of the ’var sity eight set a hot pace in saddle for the Lazy J riders. He rode that morning a big-boned, Roman-nosed, blne-roau “outlaw”—a horse pronounced irreclaimable by the boys; he had tied a bucking roll across the shoulders of his saddle to supplement the grip of his knees, and on top of that lay the big, loose coil of his fifty-foot cable line, for he was still young enough to disdain a lariat of lesser length aud caliber. Behind Holden Navajo Jim lifted a light left foot to the stirrup; theu his spurred right tripped clinking to the evasive dance of his young horse, and he slipped inimitably into his saddle. •To its right shoulder hung the trim coiled ring of his rope of braided raw hide, which, to that of the foreman, was as steel to iron aud would hold anything ou hoofs. Foreman and follower struck out through the greasewood over ground without grass; the grazing range lay high on the mesa, fenced by the lofty wail of the canon. Its seemingly in accessible height was foaled b not far r .- r jyvy up the canon, and presently they took to the dizzy trail. With slack cinches the blowing horses Clawed up th4 loose footing at the top of the break and moved out on a narrow projecting tongue of the mesa. Htill higher the mesa broad ened and was set with squat cedars aud pinons. Here the riders saw cat tle already chewing their cuds ir the shade. “iVe’re too low down. There’s nothing here,” said the young fore man, his eyes roving over the stock. “It’s beef I’m after. I’ve got to got a train-road off by the first and not a hundred steers gathered yeti” “Quaking-asp putty good place for steer uow,” said Navajo Jim. “Water sweet there and stampin’- gronnd close.” “Yes, I know,” Holden returned, impatiently. “The boys started twenty head down yesterday aud had them pointed for the oortal, when that blamed gray steer scattered the bunch, and they broke back for the hills.” “That gray steer like bull elk. Bet ter corral him with six-shooter,” said Jim. “One steer not much worth.” “Six-shooter nothing! What’s our ropes for ?” cried Holden. “That big grizzly brute will fetch up a whole carload to the top notch in the stook- peus. He goes on hoof to Omaha. I told the boys I’d give a $50-dollar saddle to the first man that ’twined’ him and stayed with him.” “I already got putty good saddle, Mr. Holdeu,” said Jim, with a grin. “That steer seven.eight year old now, and all time run wild. Horns so long stick clean through horse. ” “Well, beef’s up in the air; horses are down,” returned the foreman. “Quirt up, Jim. Wo’ll strike up higher.” Ou the loftier grazing-ground they found the cattle still at feed. Through thickening hosts of doer-flics and horse-flies their horses strained up the steep oakbrush slopes. In banded resistance to like winged attacks, the cattle of the higher range were begin niug to “bunch” on each open stamp ing-gronnd. Toward these trampled circles the scattered atcers were one by one making their way. “The boys can run in all these steers tomorrow," said Holden. “You aud I, Jim, are going to twine that gray steer today.” “He got big scare yesterday; too sharp to show up on stampin’-ground today,” Jim suggested “Like enough," Holden assented, “but we’ll rustle him out. The boys lost him late yesterday iu the loug quaking-asp patch iu that gulch up there, just below the rim-rock.” He pointed to the ri. \-rock of the spruce ridge, rising yet loftily above Hr where.” “We’ll put him ;p,” said Holden, confidently; “and once he shows,stay with him, Jim.” “You bet I stay!” said Jim, simply. They threaded the winding thicket on separate trails aud met near its head without a sight of the gray steer. “ It’s no use looking for him down in here,” said Holdeu. “He’s gone up higher. Let’s try in the spruce below the rim-rock. ‘ He led the way upward along the steep, brushy side of the gulch until, stopped by the rim-rock, they sat iu their saddles and looked down and back in disappointment. Below them the gulch enclosed the fastness of the deer, a space darkened to twilight by a growth of young spruce and aspen saplings. “Maybe he down in those,” said Jim, with a drop alike of voice and hand. “Hide hisself in daytime like black tail buck.” “But we cau’t get into that ‘pocket’ on horses," Holden replied loudly, in vexation. “Wait! I’ll try for him!” As he spoke he dismounted to act on a boyish inspiration. He had noticed a big block fallen from the rim-rook and lying tilted up on the slope. With mighty heaving he overturned it, aud down the slope it crashed in smashing leaps through the brush and swaying timber to the very heart of the spruce thicket. Suorts came up from below; Holden marked the course of startled, hurry ing creatures by the lines of swaying tops furrowing the still, green sur face, aud three grand buj velvet as they topped the lower brush; but a bearer of mightier horns was breaking through the pliaut young trees, and a glimpse of n grizzly hide was exultantly canght by the young foreman. “Ah, he show up now!” shouted Navajo Jim, erect iu the stirrups, as the great steer came out below. Bred from the finest of the Lazy J stock, he would have weighed near '2U00 pounds; but such speed and bot tom were his “rustling” ou that rough range that the big body rose over the brush with the wild grace of a buck, and with deer-like case his frontlet, black and threatening, was thrown back over bis grizzly shoulder as he stopped and eyed his hunters for an instant. One defiant shake of his per fect horns, then he raced onward,and only bending brush marked his path. Holdeu was already galloping after him. smashing the undergrowth in a straight course down the slope to in tercept him below,shouting as he ran. Jim, with Indian circumspection, ran ua horse in an easier descent along the slope, keeping his eyes on the swaying brush beneath and waiting for an opportunity of closing iu more open ground. Now Holden’s horse, the blue out law, showed once more his spirit aud brought Holdeu close behind the game. Navajo Jim emerged from tbe % on the obedient Indian spur® the wild steer and ths flying The great steer seemed feel the 50-pound drag of the ing saddle. Yet'it tightened aljout loin and flanks, and by it harder for him to breathe sole, his speed that Jim easily kept! sight Through yielding swaying thicket through frightened cattle that split to pass and came stringing after, and bawling in sympathy, the] plnnged on. F.ach bawling bunch in distanced. The brushy slopot away. As the mesa, sprin pinons, began to offer to Jia spaces for handling his horse, hackled the strap that held the his rope, but still, as every l the steer took him the nearer corral, the wise Indian only 1 rawhide ringed ready in his handj Down the rapidly narrowing of the mesa—the tnesa which precipitously out into the river-i and was bounded on either side abyss—the trapped steer sped must soon be at a standstill tempt to return on his tracks. The Indian’s eyes had already died with anticipation of triumph, at the last of the pinons the bunr hurtling saddle caught fast bei projecting roots. It scarcely ch the steer! Holden’s cable tore 1 from the saddle-horn, and its si ened loop was speedily kicked f the steer’s hjgh-plunging kaund Once more the great gray brute free. “Ah, he on the push now!” Jim aud looked to his loop as the reversed his big body, gave a h writhing leap over the spurned r confronted the herder with the thri eniug crescent of his sharp horns plnnged forward to the combat. The Navajo lifted his horse a: with the spurs, swung the loop o; in his right hand and rose, half tur in the stirrups, in a quick underth: for the front hoofs of the steer as lunged by. Jim’s eyes saw, for an instant, 1 ered horns and uplifted hoofs mingl( together, and his throw was true. B so quick was the play of the ponde ous feet that the loop caught one for leg only and passed over the face ai hung across the horns. The loop, drawn tight by the roper instantaneous jerk and kept from slacl ening by his nimble horse,bound hor and hoof together. Now the ste« was in sad plight. With head draw sidewise, with tongue lolling fros open jaws, bellowing, he surged oi T worked then. By Jove, I’ll still, with The Tallies* Revel. The night was cold and the night w« A big red moon peeped over the WU, The froggies croaked and Chuckled At the wonderful sight they expected to Tbe golden rod waved in the moonlight soft, And nodded her bead In the tree-tope aloft, The crickets chirped a sweet little song ^hile they waited to welcome tbe fairy throng. Out of each buttercup, with spring. Came danclo ancing the their king They led to their From spangled bowers ed round a gay little fairies; their queen and e throne ’neath dew- sunflowers. with daisies and topped with soft Then, taking their partners, with steps and light * They danced and they danced till ’twas late In the night; 'They sat at a banquet of honey and dew. Of bee bread, pollen aud other things, too. The moon became older and older, until He sank behind the far distant hill; 1 bey toasted their king and queen, os was right, And jumped In their buttercups with hearty good-night. —Gardner de Veuve. Care of Goldflkh. Little ones that have goldfish, and wish to keep them well, should allow them as large a glass bowl as possible. Reuew the water every day by means of a siphon, so that the fish may not be frightened by being canght in a net. In giving fresh water one gives fresh food of thfc most wholesome kind. Never give them bread. Ants’ eggs dried can be procured at any drugstore; every other day give three or four of them to each fish. The bowl should be in a bright place, but not in the direct rays of the sun. A Humming Bird** Umbrella. A writer tells this remarkable story about a humming bird: In front of a window where I worked last summer was a butternut tree. A humming bird built her nest on a limb that grew near the window, and we had an opportunity to watch her closely. In fact, we could look right into her nest. One day, when there was a heavy shower coming up, we thought we would see if she covered her young during the rain. Well, when the first drops fell, she came and took in her bill one or two or three large leaves growing close by, and laid this leaf over the nest so as to completely cover slowed his horse to thi *** *ben she flew away. On examining the leaf we found a Tom, half alond. “It it ought to work now. try it!” Then Tom, in a loud voice, called out: “Forty men deploy to the left! Forty men move over to the right! Colonel, take thirty men and get in the road behind ’em to cut ’em off! Stay where you are, captain, and no one fire till I give the word. We’ve got ’em now, and we’ll kill them all!” The men in hiding with Tom looked at him in astonished anger; was he a spy, after all? One man jumped to his feet, but he stumbled and fell over a companion, and they both started a great clatter of stones. On tbe other side of tbe road a man rose up above the rocks at the strange orders. His gun fell and went off. Tom had fixed his eyes on the troops below him. At his first words they stopped in amazement, then tkev heard sounds from all sides of many men, apparently hastening to obey the clear commands. Some lifted their rifles but there was no one to shoot at. They began to turn and look at the road behind them. They thonght it was an ambush and that they were surrounded. To stay would mean death, with no chance .o fight. And when the rifle shot rai.g out from the rocks on their left thoy turned, and started down the road. In another moment they were racing down the mountain side to beat the thirty men sent down to stop their retreat.—Harper’s Round Table. three legs, but his spirit was un broken. The roper strain. From horn to cantle the sac die creaked as, trampling and tugginj * n Ik® 8 i<l® °f the nest thicket to see the young foreman fi full career, swinging his big rope while the haltered head of the horse and the huge-horued frontlet of the steer reached out in an oven race across the little open space beyond. The loop of Holden’s cable lit fairly over the widespread horns; but his hand was hardly quick enough iu closing it. While it hung slack the steer leaped with both front legs through it, and then Holden’s tardy- jerk brought it tight arottud the grizzly flanks. , The beast bellowed as the plunge of his great gray body drew the turn of the rope swiftly from the saddle horn. Vainly Holdeu tried to stay it, Recklessly he threw the slack oml in a hitch around the steel horn anti clapping his hand over it braced his horse for the shock. With forelegs outplauted and qnar ters lowered, the stubborn blue out law stauchly set himself to the tight ening rope. For an instant he was jerked along, stiff-logged, then over they went, dragged dow n, fierce horse and reckless roper. Clearing his legs, hanging at the side of his struggling horse, Holden still held the saddle-horn with power fill grasp. Another bawl, a plunge tUat no cinches could withstand—and lo, the saddle was stripped from the outlaw and jerked high and far from Holden’s hand! Navajo Jim checked his horse, but “On!” roared the young foreman, am in a wild, wide waltz, straining hors and hauling steer made the mad cir cuit of the precipices The Navajo, active in the saddle with rein, spur and rope, was, in spite of all his efforts, dragged past the break y where the trail ran down the y .i.S. ed on and on until he circled along the perilous porphyry brink, and Jim glanced longingly from the saddle on the cor ral,seemingly almost directly beueath him, its great square shrunk to the mtnauve of his saddle-blanket. Holden,pounding down bareback on the blue roan, had stopped to gather up his rope, but now Jim heard his encouraging shout. The quickened tramp of his rushiug horse,the whirr iug of his big rope as he swung it aloft, sounded close at hand, and the sweating roper relaxed his strain. The steer, alert to the slack, jerked iis hoof from the loop. Heedless of the cutting rope, instantly tightened across face and frontlet, his stately head was lifted, and he stood, wild eyed, quivering, cornered, caught but not conquered. He was on four legs again. Conquered? Never! • With resistless pull on the rope,he wheeled and broke for escape aerpss the cliff that rises, red-banded, above the cor ral. “Stay with him, Jim!” roared the yonng foreman, swinging his rope, sure the steer would stop at the edge. 8tay with him? It meant death snrely. Already under the plunging front hoofs of the desperate rebel the porphyry rim crumbled. Jim’s obedi ence did not falter, although he was fairly- staring down on the corral. How would the falling feel? The Indian had a swift picture of it —the steer lowest in the air on the taut lariat, horse aud man whirling after—bnt stick that the leaf was or hooked upon. After was a small fastened to the storm was over the old bird came back and unhooked the leaf, and the nest was perfectly dry.—Weeklv Bouquet . ltd. n azilian forest you will think it .range to hoar the click of a hammer an anvil. Ton would imagine that were approaching some settle- ! ent and the picture of the ruddy low of the forge would oome up be- ore your eyes. But if your guide were a native he would tell yon that the sound was made by a campanero, as they call it, although to foreigners it is known as the anvil bird. This bird is a little larger than a thrush. The plumage is perfectly white, the eyes are a pale-gray color, and the naked throat and skin around the eyes are of a fine, bright green, while its more motherly relative is orange aud black, very much like our oriole. It is generally in fire day that the fiirth the wonderful heard at a distance arvellous, indeed, A Bridge of Monkt-ys. “They are coming toward the bridge; they will most likely cross by the rocks yonder,” observed Raoul. “How—swim it?” I asked. “It is a torrent there. ” “Oh, no!” answered the French man. “Monkeys would rather go through fire than through water. If they cannot leap the stream they will bridge it.” “Bridge it—and how?” “You will see iu a moment,” my companion replied. Presently the monkeys appeared upon the opposite bank, headed by an old gray chieftain, officered like so many soldiers. One, an aide de camp, or chief pioneer perhaps, ran out up on a projecting rock,and after looking across the stream, as if calculating the distance, scampered back, and ap peared to communicate with the leader. This produced a movement in the troops. Meanwhile several of the monkeys (engineers, no doubt) ran along the bank examining the trees on both sides of the arrayo. At length they all collected aronnd a tall cotton-wood which grew over the nar rowest part of the stream, and twenty of the thirty scampered up its trunk. On reaching a high point, the fore most, a strong fellow, ran out upon a limb, and taking several tarns of his tail around it, slipped off and hung head downward. The next on the limb, also a stoat one, climbed down the body of the first, and whipped his tail tightly aronnd the neck and fore arm of the latter, dropped off repeated this manoehVei* upoi the early part of campanero sends note that can be of three miles, pnist be the echanism of so small a bird to pro- ce so far-reaching a note; but there no doubt of the fact, for many I avelera have heard the strauge iund uttered by the bird when perched on the topmost branch of tome withered tree.—New York World. Tom’s Military Trick. By 4 o’clock in the afternoon Tom’s party was on the last aud steepest bit of the mountain side. Suddenly 8 man cried “Halt!” The road at this dace was very steep and winding,and Navajo Jim set his savage jassed between high, rocky sides. It jaws. No foreman should dare him was like a railroad cut, and the road- to stay with a roped beast! He would )ed was scarred by the rushing waters not look ou the faces of white ropers >f the rainy season. Some 400 feet sneering. He was hired body and mIow them the party of revolutionists soul—he was obedient—he would m\v a body of men iu uniform. They 8ta Y- (were toiling slowly up the monutain Holden, for this mad second, watched tide, and Tom counted fifty men be- incredulously. The steer would not fore they were hidden from view, go over—surely not. What? Straight> “They must be stopped,” said the on! And Jim! Was the man also haan with the rifle, in an intense crazy? Thou the Navajo heard once whisper, “they must be kept out of more his master’s voice. the mountains until night They will “For God’s sake, Jim—let go! O learn of our concentration and spread heavens!” the news. But how can we, with Jim obeyed. He flung loose the three rifles, stop fifty? I ask you, roj e, but on his horse staggered. And can it be done?” * the black length of the lariat was still “It is impossible,” chorused the whipping out w ith the defiant horned nervous revolutionists, head that pitched off into space when “Then hide in the rocks, and not a the agile horse saved himself and his sound till they are well past!” rider on the very brink. The men hastily scrambled np both Holden dropped his useless rope as ^® 8 °f Jbe an< J in minutes the Navajo, skimming the porphyry A®r® was no sign of the little band, edge like a swallow, rode back and {Tom found that by saising his head stared into the eyes of the white man. if could see through a cleft of the MR. BARNARD DIDN’T DO A THING. HU Nam* Began Just Like That of tbe Chap Somebody Wa# Looking For. An amusing Omaha narrative is that of Barnard. Barnard told it on him self and seemed to feel that he was lucky in being able to relate the ad venture. Barnard has some capital and frequently makes loans on farm property. He is tender hearted and would not see a sparrow fall; but also he does not care to see his investments go to pot. “I went out into Chase county once," he said, “to look after some land which it seemed I was going to have to take on a mortgage. I reached there dirty and disreputable after a long ride through tl# sand region, and, after finding the little country hotel, broke immediately for a barber shop. The barber was a fierce looking fellow and he used lanndry soap, as I shortly learned. That has nothing to do with the story—I simply mention it os an ^ndex to his desperate character. He was exceedingly nervous, aud iu a few minutes I began to regret bitterly that I hod not gone to a tiushop to be shaved. “ ‘Stranger?’ he said, as he took a small nip off my chin. “Y'es. I came from Omaha.” “ ‘Omaha?’ with renewed interest. ‘I been sittin’ up nights for a man from Omaha.’ « “I made son.# monosyllabic re sponse, and he nicked out a three cor nered excavation near my jaw. “ ‘Yes; that’s what makes me ner vous. I’m just a little bit shaky. I ain’t had no sleep for five nights and days, expectin’ him. You see, he’s cornin’ out here to take my claim away from me on a mor’gage. I’m going to kill him if I see him in time.’ “I started in the chair and he blamed me for the long scratch which he made in my left cheek. I wanted to get right out of that chair, but was afraid that this wild creature might suspect me. In lieu of safer things, sympathy,it seemed to me, was proper at this moment “ ‘Has the fellow any right to take your land?’ I inquired. “Legally, mebbe, yes; by rights, no. I put in six year on that groufid off an’ on from the barber business, an’ I’m going to bang to it I usually have my own way. You notice I’m the only barber in town.’ “‘Yes. But about ’ “ ‘Three other fellers have come here at odd times and tried to git my trade. One shot—two skipped—me here yet’ “He said this as dispassionately as s clock ticking off the seconds, and incidentally he took about a quarter’s worth of skin off my neck. “ T’m an honest man an’ a good barber,’ he said, ‘an’ I don’t intend to be run over. The people out here know me an’ paternize mf. Travelin’ men say they’ve heard of my Hoffman Honse shave all over the state. Therel That was your fault, not mine. Yon ought to set still. I’ll plaster some it an* stop it. I don’t usually “He was Jim, with a brave, that steer,” said queer choke iu his throat, himself from the cks a part of the road below him ere the soldiers must pass. Soon “He saved himself from the stoefc* Jk®y began to file slowly by. They pens.” «ere government troops, that was Holden held out his hand and 5 *®^. an d they were tired and hot, grasped the Indian’s. “You beat ruy‘ n<1 bad no thought of the enemy, time, Jim,” was all he said, but soma- At tbe moment Tom remembered a thing in the tone called a new pridfldory of South American generalship, into the Navajo’s stern face.—Fran* ,ftea re,ate( * b . v hi9 * at ber. “It was Oakling, in Youth’s Companion. ust sac b a situation as this.” said second, and the fourth upon the s' rested his forepaws upon the groundT The living chain now commenced to swing backward and forward, like the pendulum of a clock. The motion was slight at first,but gradually increased, the lowermost monkey striking his hands violently on the earth as he passed the tangent of the oscillating curve. Several others upon the limbs above aided the movement. This continued till the monkey at the end of the chain was thrown among the branches of a tree ou th« opposite bank. Here, after two or three vibra tions he clntched a limb, and held fast. This movement was executed adroitly, just at the culminating point of the oscillation, in ordei; to save the intermediate links from too sudden a jerk. The chain was now fast at both ends, forming a complete suspension bridge, over which the whole troop, to the number of four or five hundred, passed. It was a comical sight to witness the quizzical expression of countenance along that living chain. After the troops had passed one monkey attached his tail to the lowest on the bridge, another girdled him in tbe same manner, and another, until a dozen more were added to the string. These last were powerful fellows, and running up to a high limb, they lifted the bridge into a position almost horizontal. Then a scream from the last monkey of the new formation warned the tail end that all was ready, and the next mo ment the whole chain was swnng over aud landed safely on the opposite bank. The lowermost links dropped off like a melting candle, while the higher ones leaped to the branches and came down by the trnnk. The whole troop then scampered off into the chapparal, a*id disappeared,— Reid’s Adventures in South America. The Kotharhlld of Central Asia. Arou bon Khassof of Bokhara, known as “the Rothschild of Central Asia,” is probably the wealthiest Jew in the Trans-Caspian possessions of Russia. Ha is an importer of silverware, aud he aims now to establish an agency of his business in Hamburg. He is the leader of his coreligionists in Bokhara, where the Jews are numerous and well treated, though, like the so-called Multans or British Indian subjects in the Khanate, they have to pay double taxes. They appear to thrive and make money, and are on the best of terms with the Emir’s Kush-Bogi, who certainly appears desirous of main taining friendly relations with them, and does not hesitate to invite them to his table on festive and other occa sions. Even at the religions initia tion of his two sons this high func tionary thonght the ceremony incom plete without the presence of twenty representatives of the Jews, headed by the “Rothschild of Central Asia.” of upset me. Mebbe you don’t\no% the man? Name’s Barn-something. Ought to be pretty prominent over there. 111 prominent him, though.’ “He had his razor right under my ^ r i*- ue i’ er 8aw t ^ e man in ray life! I hissed between my teeth,being consumed with horror. “ ‘So? Well, if ho ever comes out here, as I hear he is goin’ to, you’ll here of a new death. I’ll be here giv ing the delighted public the real Hoff man House shave years after that fel ler’s sizzled into cinders. Wait there. I want to put ile on your hair. Got to give you the best job in the house.’ And I meekly returned to my chair, while he rubbed a compound of lard and musk into my scalp. I gave him half a dollar and he shook hands with me four times and insisted on know ing my name. I told him it Jones, I believe. “From last accounts he was still out there. He can stay there for all I’ll ever do to abridge his happiness.” was The Captain’* Isolation. The captain of an American warship leads a rather solitary life. The ward room where the commissioned officers live and mess is an intimate sort of club, where every one has known every one else pretty much all his life. When a man steps upward from the wardroom to the cabin, the old companionships end so long as joint service is to be done. Discipline makes this necessary. Further inter course can be agreeable but never familiar ; for the captain, so long as he is captain, is never off duty. He messes alone and has his own ser vants, his own boat with the gold arrow on the bow, and the bail or star ou the flagstafl', according as he happens to be of the higher or the lower common grade. Occasionally he invites the wardroom officers in dividually to dinner or breakfast, aud a cadet now and then, to the usual disgust of that youth, who always deems a sepulchral stiffness the prop er, and, in fact, his safest line of be havior during the repast. At rare in tervals he may accept a bid to the wardroom table, but most captains fancy they perceive a didactic and ab normally mind-improving turn to the conversation of the youuger officers on such occasions and do not foster them.—New York Independent. Spanish Cheating. Louis the Twelfth of France having made a certain bargain with King Ferdinand of Spain, found that Fer dinand had grievously cheated him, whereupon he made complaint of his dealings. The Spanish king made answer to the court as follows: “The king of France is complaining that I have deceived him twice; he lies. I have deceived him more than ten times.” f