The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1903-01-25

! Cross Readers soul to drop over here
and take a shot at me. 1t whiles away
dull care for him, and he has the ad-
ditional exercise of running all the
way home"
All" she cried Indignantly, they
told me you always answered like
thisr
well, you see the CROSSROADS eff
forts have proved so purely hygienic
for me. AS a patriot l have sometimes
felt extreme modification that such
bad craftsmanship should exist in the
county. but 1 console myself with the
thought that their best shots are I'M
happily in the penitentiary."
There are many left. Can't you I'M
derstand that they will organize again
: and come in a body, as they did be-
fore you broke them up? And then, il
they come on a night when they know
you are wandering out of town
You have not the advantage OF an
intimate study of the most exclusive
people of the CROSSROADS, Miss Sher-
wood. There are about twenty gentle
men who remain in that neighborhood
while their relatives sojourn under
discipline. If you had the entree over
there, you would understand that these
twenty could not gather themselves
into a company and march the seven
miles without physical debate in the
ranks. They are not precisely amiable
people, even amongst themselves.
They would quarrel and shoot each
other to pieces long before they got
here"
But they worked in a company
once"
Never for seven miles. Four miles
was their radius. Five would see them
all dead"
She struck the bench again. "Oh,
you laugh at mel You make a joke of
your own life and death, and laugh at
everything! Have five years of PIatt-
Vile taught you to do that?"
II laugh only at taking the poor
Cross Readers too seriously. 1 don't
laugh at your running into fire to help
a fellow-mortal."
Il knew there wasn't any risk. I
knew he had to stop to load before he
shot again"
He did shoot again. If had known
you before to-night-I-." His tone
changed and he spoke gravely. II am
at your feet in worship of your phil
anthropy. It's so much finer to risk
your life for a stranger than for a
friend"
That is rather a mans point of
view, isn't it?"
You risked yours for a man you
had never seen before"
"Oh. no! l saw you at the lecture
/ heard you introduce the Honorable
Mr.. Holloway"
Then / don't understand your
wishing to save me-"
She smiled unwillingly, and turned
her gray eyes upon him with troubled
sunniness, and, under the kindness of
her regard. he set a watch upon his
lips, though he knew it might not
avail him. He had driveled along re-
specially so far, ne thought; but he
had the sentimental longings of years,
starved of expression, eliminating in
his heart. She continued to look at
him, wistfully. searchingly. gently.
Then her eyes travelled over his big
frame from his shoes Ga patch of moon
Fight fell on them; they were dusty;
he drew them under the bench with a
shudder) to his broad shoulders Che
shook the stoop out of them.) She
stretched her small hands toward him
in contrast, and broke into the most
delicious low laughter in the world.
At this sound he knew the watch on
his lips was worthless. 1t was a uues-
ton of minutes till he should present
himself to her eyes as a sentimental
and susceptible imbecile. He knew it.
He was in wild spirits.
Gould you realize that one of your
dangers might be a shaking?" she
cried. rs your seriousness a lost
art?" Her laughter ceased suddenly.
"Ah, no. l understand. Theirs said the
French laugh always, in order not to
weep. l haven't lived here five years,
1 should laugh too, if I were YOU"
Look at the moon," he responded.
I'VE Plattvillains own that with the
best of metropolitans, and for my
part, / see more of it here. You do
not appreciate us. We have large
landscapes in the heart of the city.
and what other capital possesses ad-
vantages like that? Next winter the
railway station is to have a new stove
for the waiting-room. Heaven itself is
one of our suburbs-it is so close that
all one has to do is to die. You insist
upon my being French, you see, and
know you are fond of nonsense How
did you happen to put The Walrus
and the Carpenter at the bottom of
a page of Fisbee's notes?"
WAS it? How were you sure it was
II"
I'm Carlow county,
He might have written It him.
self"
"Fisbee has never in his life read
anything lighter than cuneiform in
scriptions."
Miss Briscoe-"
"She doesn't read Lewis Carroll; and
1t was not her hand. What made you
write 1t on Fisbee's manuscript"
He was with us this afternoon, and
1 leased him little about your head
ing, Business and the Cradle, the AL
tar, and the Tomb isn't it? And he
said it had always troubled him, but
I.oA q
asked me If could think of anything
that you might like better, to put in
| place of it, and 1 wrote, The time has
come, because It was the only thing
1 could think of that was as appro-
| pirate and as fetching as your head
lines. He was perfectly dear about it.
He was so serious; he said he feared
1t wouldn't be acceptable didn't no.
tice that the paper he handed me to
write on was part of his notes, nor dio
he, think. Afterward, he put it back