The Press., 1901-06-06

es," continued the amateur cynic. He wears rubber overshoes in wet wealth CT, cultiyates sandy side whiskers, car ries a gingham umbrella. belongs to building and loan association and has all the other marks of severe respecta- bility. I had supposed him to be the quintessence of cast iron veracity, but when I sat down in cold blood to put him on record I was astounded at the blase fashion with which he frivoled with the truth. I pushed the button on him 15 times in 27 minutes; then he got into whispered conversation with a caller, and I lost the thread of his remarks. But I am certain if l had been in earshot the counter would have had hard work keeping up with the procession.
 ."That relieved my mind somewhat, and later on, when made quiet test of several of the other fellows in the office, I came to the conclusion that l was no worse than the average, but the average was pretty tough. As far as my Investigations went, the invoice clerk held the record. He is guileless
 
 freckled nose, and l never supposed he bad any imagination concealed in his peg topped cranium. but he forced me to push the indicator up exactly P times in 15 minutes. During the last part of the stretch, however, he was trying to trade off secondhand bicy- cle, and that naturally swelled the re turns.
 "Of course I soon realized that the idea of keeping count on my own men dacity was entirely impractical and abandoned the effort. but the other data has furnished me with abundant food for thought. My brotner-in-law by the way, insists that we would make a great mistake in trying tC weed these flowers of fable out of Oul daily speech. He says we lie continu ally and systematically because every body else lies, and a man who would start out to tell the plain. cold, raw rectangular truth about everything il life would be little better than an an archist. He would upset all establish ed standards of value and make it nee essary almost to recast the language Besides, nobody would believe him But my brother-in-law is doctor, added the amateur cynic thoughtfully
 "and maybe that makes difference Shadowy Sicily.
 Sicily is in some sense land of shadows-a land where the dead are more present to the mind than the liying-a land where one feels ones self to be a breathing man visiting, like Dante or like Hercules, the realms of phantoms. Everywhere you are haunted by the ghosts of great men or the memories of great events or of great and departed nations.
 In the lemon groves of the promon- tory of Naxos one fancies the sickly Nicias willing away the winter, while his fleet rides in the bay outside the Greek harbOr. At Syracuse we see whole host of great shades Nicias again and Lamachus, slain near the AnapO, and the ghosts of thou sands of Athenians perishing in the great harbor and on the cliffs of Epi- pole and, last of all, in the quarries and so vanishing into thin air And again by the shores of Ortygia we think of Plato and Pindar and Bacchy- lides and Simonides, the visitors at the court of the stately Hiero, and last, but not least. of St. Paul tarrying for short space in the harbor and per haps preaching in some of the squares and streets of the old city.
 There is yet another figure who fol lows ones thoughts through Sicily the naughty and mystical Empedocles Live remember him on the slopes of Etna, in his native Acragas, and again at Selinus. And even in bright and busy Palermo the dead are more tC us than the living It is of familiar or Marcellus or Frederick II and the brilliant Norman kings that we think the most. So thoroughly in Sicily dc the shadows of the past dominate the living present.-Sir Edward Fry's Studies by the Way"
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