E were walking in an embroidery, my philosophic friend and I, an embroidery of sight and scent and sound. We were walking in Kensington Gardens, on a morning

in May.

Before us, inviting us, stretched long avenues of greens ward, still wet with dew, sparkling in big fantastic patches of sunshine, darkling in crisp masses of shadow, dotted by many newly-shorn sheepish-looking sheep. Over our heads the sky was scintillant, of the tenderest English blue, and great lazy white clouds floated luxuriously in it-white, yet iridescent, with pale rose and pale violet reflections. About us the trees, those imperial trees, clad in sumptuous new foliage, almost seemed to mimic the clouds in the fulness and softness of their outlines; whilst every vista was bedimmed, enriched, by that wonderful pearl-dust into which the smoke and mist of London are transmuted when they reach the Gardens. And then there were the birds: blackbirds and thrushes, repeating and repeating the self-same songs they have sung from the beginning of the world-things of beauty that have never passed into nothingness; blackbirds and thrushes, sometimes a robin, sometimes even a wren, and always, of course, sparrows, sparrows, sparrows, those shrewish plebeians of their kind.

I, in a moment of unrestrained enthusiasm, cried out, "It is an embroidery, an embroidery of sight and scent and sound."

"It is very nice," my philosophic friend assented, beaming amicably upon it through his spectacles: "it is very nice indeed. The greensward is green, the sheep are sheepish-looking, the flowers are flowery, the sky is skyey, the clouds are like whipped-cream.

There's a visible agreement between the names of things and their appearances, which satisfies our brute instinct for congruity. It is a beautiful instance, with these smiling lawns, benignant oaks, and cheerful colors, of what a charming pet Nature may become, when man has got his foot firmly planted on her neck. There are many foolish people who will boast to you that they are Nature-lovers. In nine hundred and ninety-nine cases out of a thousand the person who asseverates his love for Nature merely proves that he is profoundly unacquainted with her. Nature, in puris naturalibus, before man has whipped and cowed and tamed her, is the fiercest and the most obscene of monsters. My dear fellow, Nature, Nature untamed by man, free Nature, Nature in a natural condition, is--the Devil."

My friend paused (to take breath, perhaps). Possibly he was only gathering himself together for a fresh attack. Anyhow, by and by we came in sight of the Bayswater-road, along which numberless omnibuses, laden with humanity, were rolling Citywards; and thereupon he began :

"Look at those poor, witless woodcutters going into the wood, to cut their load of fagots. If they had an ounce of wit among them, they'd dismount, every man of 'em, and come and spend this Heaven-sent morning as Heaven sent it to be spent. Do you think Heaven sent a morning like this to be spent in a dingy wood, cutting fagots? Was there ever a bluer, a more fragrant, a more melodious day? An embroidery, I believe I called it a minute or two ago. No? The word was yours? It doesn't matter. The day is an embroidery, a perfumed embroidery, an embroidery of jewels, richer than all their tribe; and the poor, witless plodders spurn it beneath their

feet, and plod on-to cut a load of fagots.

"Well," I ventured to suggest, "it is possible the poor wood-cutters have wives and children, whom they feed by cutting fagots. And, anyhow, you must do them the credit of admitting that they're bravely defying their natural impulses. To abandon luxurious idleness, and set your face resolutely towards stern toil

"Caro mio," my friend interrupted gently, "it grieves me to hear you utter such ready-made platitudes. As for their wives and children-you gross materialist-what's the use of feeding? And as for their natural impulses, believe me, they're obeying the very lowest. They're obeying the impulse of avarice. They go, indeed, to cut fagots; but down in his secret heart every mother's son of them dreams that some day he will find a bag of gold. If it weren't for that-if you could dispel that dream-he'd give up going on the instant. What! for mere fagots? And merely to fill the gaping mouths of wives and children? Pay the labor, the sweat, the blood, of a precious human lifetime? Not he! He is led on by his itch for that bag of gold. A vision of it swims in the air, before him, like the Cross of Constantine. It is what 'keeps him hup,' as he might himself express it. Poor fool!"

"Poor fool,' as much as you will," said I. "But isn't there a tremendous element of pathos in his folly? And, after all, such things as bags of gold have been found by lucky searchers in the past. Why should you be so cocksure that he'll never find his ?"

"I'm not cock-sure. He may find it. But if he does he'll find, too, that he's given more for it than it is worth. Here is a maxim, which I recommend you to write down in your commonplace book a bag of gold is never worth anything near what the finding of it costs. If our witless brother yonder could only read, he'd see that the legend round his vision runs-not‘In this sign shalt thou conquer '-but 'For this sign shalt thou sell thy soul.' He'd be far better advised to relinquish the quest, get down from his omnibus,

and come and pass the morning toying here with tamed Nature, the charming pet, along o' you and me."

As we turned our backs on the Bayswater-road, my friend said, "Speaking of wood-cutters and bags of gold, if you like to offer me a penny chair, I'll tell you an edifying little story."

So we established ourselves in penny chairs, under a chestnut tree, looking off towards the glimmering Long Water, and my friend began his story.

it is

"Or rather," he explained, not a story. It is merely a fragment of a story. It's the fragment of a fairy tale that I read when I was a child. However, I dare say you know that fragments-either fragments of things unfinished, or fragments of things destroyed- are always more suggestive to the really superior mind than things whole and entire. And as this particular fragment happens to be particularly suggestive, I trust you'll feel that it's worth the penny you'll have to pay for my chair."

I produced a penny and laid it in my friend's palm. "You can pay for the chair yourself now," I said. "Go

on."

"Well," he went on, "the story related how a poor wood-cutter dwelt in a cottage at the edge of a vast wood, alone with his little daughter. And though the poor wood-cutter was very poor indeed, he loved his little daughter with a quite extravagant tenderness; and though his little daughter was only a poor wood-cutter's daughter, she was as sweet and as pretty as pretty and sweet can be. She had blue eyes, and rosy cheeks, and hair like spun sunshine, and lips like the petals of an oleander, and teeth like tiny petrified drops of milk, and in fact all the personal advantages that the maiden in a fairy tale ought to have. She had, besides, a good heart and a musical voice. But they were exceedingly hard up; and by cutting fagots all day long, day after day, it was just as much as the poor wood-cutter could do to provide his little daughter with black bread and coarse raiment. As for her feet, she had to run bare, like the geese, because she'd no shoes. Now, their excessive pov

erty distressed the poor wood-cutter very much-not on his own account he was used to roughing it, and didn't mind-but on account of his little daughter. Solely for her sake, because he loved her so tenderly, he longed for riches. He longed to be able to buy her all sorts of expensive things-frills and furbelows, ribbons for her hair, strawberries and cream, and especially a pair of shoes-smart red shoes, by preference. Nothing, he felt, could be too good for her. And yet, by cutting fagots all day long, it was the very utmost he could do to provide her with schwarzbrod and a smock. But one day, when he was at work as usual in the wood, a fairy appeared to him. And the fairy said, 'I hear you are extremely hard up, and that you long for riches. Very good. You know the tall pine tree that grows a hundred yards from your cottage door. If you will dig at the roots of that pine you will find a bag of gold. Only there is a condition: You must dig there without thinking of the bag of gold.'"

My friend emphasized the last seven words by means of seven emphatic nods of the head; then he fell silent.

I waited for a minute expectant. At last I prompted him with a Well?"

"Well, what?" he asked. "Well, the rest of the story?" said I. "There's no rest of the story," said he. "I warned you it was a fragment. It was in a broken-backed old volume, and at the point where I leave it several pages were missing. So the end of it I never knew. But the fragment is suggestive. The wood-cutter would find a bag of gold if he could fulfil an

impossible condition-if he could dig for it without thinking of it. That is the way of life. There is always an impossible condition attached to the finding of our bag of gold."

"I don't know whether it will interest you to learn," said I, "that I happen to be in a position to supply the end of your story.

"The deuce you are!" said he.

"Yes," said I. "The wood-cutter dug at the roots of the pine tree morning and evening for many days; but he never found the bag of gold, because, try as he might, he could not help thinking of it. thinking of it. And then by and by, in despair, he dug no more. And they became poorer and poorer; and at last his little daughter died. And the woodcutter, broken-hearted, carried her body into the wood, and dug a grave for her at the roots of the tall pine tree. And there he found a bag of gold."

"Did you invent that ending-or do you chance to have read the same fairy tale?" my friend inquired.

"Never mind," said I. "It's a pretty good ending, isn't it?"

"Yes," he consented, "it's a good ending. And if you invented it, it was very intelligent of you. But you see the conclusion: you can only find your bag of gold by the loss of something infinitely more precious, and, as like as not, by the loss of the very thing that made you wish for it."

My philosophic friend rose, and we walked on. The collector had not come to take our pennies, so my friend philosophically dropped the one I had given him into his waistcoat pocket.

THE

HE agent of the big steamship company heard my request with gravity, but there was a twinkle in his kindly eyes and a peculiar twitching about the corners of his mouth as he turned to his chief clerk and said :"Otto, here is a young man who wants work on the Bismarck. What do you think of him?”

:

Otto, red-cheeked, bespectacled and with a blonde pompadour, turned around on his stool and looked me over. Slowly his mouth expanded under his straggly, yellow moustache into a broad grin.

"Holee Smote! He ain't no sailor, alretty, is he? Say, poy, vat jop you. vant? You vant to be der captain on Tuesday und Friday afternoons? You vant to blay der piano after breakwust? Mebbe you vant to holt der deeshes on der table."

Just why I was the object of these shafts of Teutonic raillery did not appear to me, but then I had still "to cut my sea teeth."

When I had determined to learn through actually living his life just what the existence of the seafaring man of today is like, I went directly at the point of the matter, and presented myself at the company offices and made application for work. I had chosen the Broadway offices of the Hamburg-American line. That the men were not hired by some functionary in this office had never occurred to me; and as to my appearance,

in order that my motives be not suspected, I had donned my oldest clothes. I supposed that I presented just such an appearance as any respectable young working man would. In size I was a shade under six feet, I weighed about 160 pounds, and was strong and agile from outdoor athletics at college.

"Ever been to sea before?" queried the agent.

"Yes, sir," I answered, telling my lie boldly, for in truth I had been afloat as a passenger, but never as seaman. "Where are your papers? Your discharges?''

Papers! For the first time I knew that a sea-going man must have papers of some sort.

"I haven't them with me, sir," I managed to stammer.

Then the agent laughed, and the clerk turned to his books shaking his head.

"See here, young fellow," said the agent, dropping his voice, "you have some reason for coming in here in this fashion. You're not broke and trying to get across or you wouldn't have that ring with the stone turned inside your hand. You're not a working man. You have never been to sea before at labor or you would know better than to come to a general agent of a line looking for a berth. Now it is none of my business what you are up to, but I advise you not to try work at sea. You are big and strong, but-well, if you are after