The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-01-17

from such A delicate and pretty creature as the girl who had been his playmate.
 He decided to give up the past and learn in earnest to be good workman He labored after hours and on holidays under the guidance of skillful men. But always, at last, they said: Ut is useless" So his apprenticeship passed slowly and neared its end
 Then one day a fellow workman stole a great sum-GO0O francs-from the man with whom Jack was lodging. The lad was suspected, and arrested, only to be freed again almost immediately because the real culprit was discovered. But be- fore his innocence was established a let ter had been sent to his mother telling her that her son would surely be sent to prison unless the 60000 francs were forth coming.
 In despair she went to D'Argenton, but the poet coldly refused. Then, with a ter rible fear of D'Argenton's lordly wrath, she suggested in trembling tones that ''Bon Ami'' had promised to provide some money for Jack when he should come of age. To her surprise and joy D'Argenton
 
 on her errand.
 Bon Ami' gave Charlotte not 5000 francs but 10000. telling her to use it for her best interests. She turned it over to D'Argenton, who went to Indret at once, beguiling the way by rehearsing the ma testic speech that he would make to the culprit and formulating the apologies that
 alrA knees before he took him away to place him in a reformatory whose prospectus he had in his pocket.
 He was a disappointed man when he ar rived only to find Jack free and nero instead of a criminal. Sullkily he read him a lecture, saying, And I had raised the money to save you!'' He took care not to tell Jack whose money 1t was.
 Nor did the poet tell him that his moth CT was waiting, even then, only few miles away. To Jacks longing questions about her he returned cold, brief replies. When he departed life settled on the lad gloomier than before.
 Even Dr. Rivals ceased writing. Jack did not know why. It was years after
  had hurried to the doctor to tell him that Jack was a thief; but Hirsch had quite forgotten to bring the later news that the lad was innocent.
 Four years passed thus. The lad with the fair hair, the soft skin, the deilcate cornplex;ou and limbs had become lanky fellow with red cheekbones and high, thin shoulders pointed under his blouse. All his efforts had failed to make him skilled V orkman. He could earn parely enough to keep himself alive. At last his foreman suggested that he should become a stoker on steamship.
 Jack. hopeless, indifferent, satisfied to earn food and lodging. became the inmate of a hole deep in the bowels of an ocean going ship. Blind, deaf. breathless, suf- located by the blood that rushed to his ey.s clouded beneath singed hds, ne rashed to get gust of fresh air. only to be chilled at once with chill so deadly that he snatched the brandy bottle that fellow stolser held out to him.
 Fire outside fire inside, flames upon flame, alcohol upon coal. it was thus' hencef, rth that he had to live. Days ana months became alike in the mad dream or drr kenress and torture All stokers must drink io live. He drank. When by chance he ciawled out of the stoke hole ana went ashore, he was too exhausted 10 go furtber than the nearest pothouse, where other stokers sat drinking. They had notl,nl. to say to each other, save when thav fought. and then they fought like wounded brutes
 In the night of this abyss there was one snot of pure, bright light-his mother
 Tn, ough the three sinister years that nassed over him her image never van ished from his heart. Now that he nad become A man many mysterious sides or his nartydom were made clear to him. His rt ST ect for Charlotte was changed to lander pity. He began to love her as one loves those for whom one suffers and ex- plates.
 In the meantime she was queening IL In the old circle reunited in Paris, because b Argenton could bear the quiet of the country no longer. He had started Re- view in which every one of the Failures appeared in print once month. Once a | copy reached the stoker. As he turned it over in his grimy hands and read the names of Hirsch, Labassndre, D'Argen- l ton and Moronval, all his executioners. | assembled on the front cover, he shook l his fist in his deep lair and cried:
 'Wretches.l Wretches Look what you | have made me!'
 1 But it was only a lightning flash. Stoke l hole and alcohol suppressed revolt. and it
 was stolid stupefed man who dragged himself on crutches one night into 1 D'Argenton's apartments to announce | that his ship had sunk at sea and he was | one of the few survivors.
 | They kept him there for few weeks till his wounds were healed. D'Argenton was ashamed to have the coarse, vulgar | workman there. Charlotte winced at his manners and the tone of contempt with | which D.Argenton's friends addressed i him. It was relief to all when the poet suggested that Jack would recover better i in the air of Etiolles.
 I Jack went there listlessy, but the woods | stirred in him something that had seemed forgotten and lost. The trees seemed to | give back something to him. Sometimes | he lost his invalid and convict-like ap- pearance under the pure, deep sky. After a few weeks he met the old doc | for and learned how he had been malrned. Dr. Rivals had not told Cecile, | and he insisted on taking Jack home ,,,tb him. Scarcely didt5ack see the tall