The Arkansaw traveler., 1888-10-13


 "Once is ample, thank you," said the king, with regal politeness; "and l should be really distressed if any of you were to burst on my account. Has anybody such thing as halfa a drachma about him?"
 He heard no more of the ode. and the mayor thought it advisable to roll up his address and take his corpora tion home.
 Agamemnon had just succeeded in borrowing the drachma and had just turned his back to pay the driver as Clytemnestra glided down the broad steps to the courtyard, and, striking an attitude, addressed nobody in par ticular in tones of rapturous joy:
 "Oh, happy day p' she cried, very loudly, "on which my hero husband returns to me after long absence, quite unexpectedly. Henceforth shall his helmet rust upon the hat-s stand and his spear repose innocuous among the umbrellas, and his breast-plate shall be replaced by chest protector j; for shield he shall have 8 sunshade, and instead of his sword he shall carry a spud. But now let me, as an un- exceptionally faithful wife, greet him before you all with-Agamemnon, will you have the goodness to tell me who that young person is in the chariot?" was her abrupt and some- what lame conclusion.
 "Oh, there you are, eh?" said Aga memnon, turning round and present. ing a forefnger. "How de do, my love how de do?" CT shan't give you another obol 1" he said to the driver, who seemed still unsatis8ed.) "So you're quite well, eh?" he resumed to his wife; "plenty to say for yourself, as usual. Cad, I feel as if I hadn't been away week-till I look at you.
 Well, we can't expect to be always young, can wei So you want to know my little friend here? Allow me to present her to you. One mo- ment."
 And bustling up to the chariot, he assisted from it a maiden with pale face, great, wild, rowing eyes, and hair of tawny gold, and led her back to his wife.
 "The Princess Cassandra of Troy my wife, Queen Clytemnestra. They tell me this young lady can prophecy very prettily, my dear," he remarked. Clytemnestra bowed coldly, and said she was sure it would be vastly amusing. Did the princess intend giving any public entertainments?
 "She is our visitor," Agamemnon put in, warningly; while Cassandra smiled satirically and said nothing at all.
 Clytemnestra hoped she might be able to induce her to stay longer, week was such very short time.
 "She has kindly consented to stay on little longer, my love-" said Aga memnon-"all her life, in tact"
 The queen was charmed to hear it; it was so very nice and kind of her, particularly as strangers were apt to find the neighborhood an unhealthy one.
 And as Kgisthus joined them just then, she presented him to the king, with the remark that he had been the most faithful and devoted of courtiers during the whole period of the kings absence, to which Agamemnon replied, with the slightest of scowls, that he was delighted to make the acquaint- ance of MT. Egisthus, and after that no one seemed to know exactly what to say for minute or two.
 At last Egisthus hazarded a SUD- position that the royal warrior had found it warm over at Troy.
 'It varied, sir," said the monarch, uncomfortably; "the climate varied. used to get very warm fighting sometimes"
 Egisthus agreed that battle must be hot work, and Cly tempestra sud- denly exclaimed that her husband was wearing the very same dear, shabby old uniform he had on when he went away.
 "The very same," said Agamemnon, smiling. "I wore it all through the campaign. Your true warrior is no dandy!"
 "We were given to understand you were wounded" remarked .Egisthus.
 "Oh," said the king, "yes. I was considered wounded-all over the chest and arms. But what cared IF"
 Exactly" said Egisthus "and, curiously enough, the weapons don't seem to have pierced your coat at all. observe there are no patches"
 "No," the king replied, "so you mo- ticed that, eh? We'll, the reason of that is that those fellows out there have peculiar sort of way of cutting and slashing, so as to-"
 And he explained this by some elab- crate illustrations with his sheathed sword, until Egisthus said that he thought he understood how it was done
 But Clytemnestra suddenly, with kitten-hke girlishness that sat but ill upon her, bounced playfully upon the Xeapon. MI want fo see it drawn