at the mud-covered cabbage with a terrified expression. Presently a hack driver noticed the action and began to stare at the vegetable from the curb-stone; then a bootblack stopped; then a bill-poster, a messenger boy and a merchant.

"What's the matter?" inquired a German approaching the innocent base of his national dish.

"Don't touch it! Look out there! Stand back!" shouted the gentleman at the window. At his horror stricken tones the crowd fell back precipitately and formed a dense circle around the innocent cabbage. Hundreds came running up, and the excitement increased rapidly.

"Look out there!" frantically screamed the better, waving his cane. "Take that dog away quick!"

Several stones were thrown at a cur that was sniffing around the cabbage.

"Take care!" said a car driver to a policeman, who was shouldering his way through the mass.

"It's an infernal machine, nitro-glycerine-or something."

Meanwhile the sidewalk was blocked, the street became impassable, women screamed and rushed into shops, and a storekeeper underneath began to tie a bucket on the end of a long pole with which to pour water on the heathenish invention. The crowd by this time numbering over a thousand, the two gentlemen moved away from the window and sat down. In a few minutes there was a hurried tap at the door and there appeared a man who had been sent as a delegate from the mass meeting outside.

"I should like to know, gentlemen," he said, "what are the facts ?"

"What facts?"

"Why, what there is peculiar about that cabbage out there?"

"Nothing in the world," was the soft reply, "except

that it seems to be surrounded by about a thousand of the biggest fools in town. Do anything else for you?”

The man reflected a moment, said he guessed not, and retired. Before he handed in his report, however, the police had dispersed the mob, and clubbed two hundred and eleven separate persons for creating a disturb

ance.

IN ANSWER.-ROSE HARTWICK THORPE,
"Madam, we miss the train at B-."
"But can't you make it, sir?" she gasped.
"Impossible; it leaves at three,

And we are due a quarter past."
"Is there no way? Oh, tell me then,
Are you a Christian?" "I am not."
"And are there none among the men
Who run the train?” “No-I forgot―

I think this fellow over here,

Oiling the engine, claims to be."

She threw upon the engineer

A fair face white with agony.

"Are you a Christian?" "Yes, I am.”
"Then, O sir, won't you pray with me,
All the long way, that God will stay,
That God will hold the train at B-?"
""Twill do no good, it's due at three
And"-"Yes, but God can hold the train;

My dying child is calling me,

And I must see her face again.
Oh, won't you pray?" "I will," a nod
Emphatic, as he takes his place.
When Christians grasp the arm of God
They grasp the power that rules the rod.

Out from the station swept the train,
On time, swept on past wood and lea;
The engineer, with cheeks aflame,
Prayed, "O Lord, hold the train at B-"
Then flung the throttle wide, and like
Some giant monster of the plain,
With panting sides and mighty strides,
Past hill and valley swept the train.

A half, a minute, two are gained;

Along those burnished lines of steel,
His glances leap, each nerve is strained,
And still he prays with fervent zeal.
Heart, hand and brain, with one accord,
Work while his prayer ascends to heaven,
"Just hold the train eight minutes, Lord,
And I'll make up the other seven."

With rush and roar through meadow lands,
Past cottage homes, and green hillsides,
The panting thing obeys his hands,
And speeds along with giant strides.

They say an accident delayed

The train a little while; but He

Who listened while his children prayed,
In answer, held the train at B-.

-Youth's Companion.

THE OLD CLOCK.-GuY CARLETON.

The old clock croons on the sun-kissed wall,
The merry seconds to minutes call;

Tick, tock! 'Tis morn!

A maiden sits at the mirror there,

And smiles as she braids her golden hair;

Oh, in the light but her face is fair!

Far over the sea the good ship brings
The lover of whom the maiden sings;

From the orange tree the first leaf springs;
Tick, tock! tick, tock!

The old clock laughs on the flower-decked wall,
The rose-winged hours elude their thrall;
Tick, tock! 'Tis noon!

The lover's pride and his love are blest;
The maiden is folded to his breast;

On her brow the holy blossoms rest.

Oh, thrice, thrice long may the sweet bells chime
As echoing this through future time!

Still to my heart beats that measured rhyme-
Tick, tock! tick, tock!

The old clock moans on the crumbling wall,
The dear years into eternity fall;

Tick, tock! "Tis night!

The thread that yon spider draws with care
Across the gleam of the mirror there

Seems like the ghost of a golden hair.

The sweet bells chime for those who may wed;
The neroli-snow crowns many

head

But tree and maiden and lover are dead.

Tick, tock! tick, tock!

HOW TIM'S PRAYER WAS ANSWERED.

"It's a staving night for a supper, a hot supper, too!" said Tim Mulligan to himself, as he stood on the street corner, in the piercing wind and sleet.

"A staving night," he reiterated, as he peered wistfully into the bakery windows across the way. He had not had any dinner at all, and not enough breakfast to say so-nothing but a crust or two that he had picked up. A little humpbacked, stunted figure, with dull blue eyes, and thin, peaked face surmounted by a brimless. hat; his clothes, evidently odds and ends,-for the pants were too large and long, while the coat-sleeves came scarcely below his elbows, and the garment would not begin to button around him,—that was Tim.

"It's a bad night," he said, as a gust of wind nearly took him off his feet. "The worst I ever knew," which was saying a good deal, for Tim had known some pretty rough nights in the course of his short life. "There isn't much show of my getting anything to-night. Guess I'd better be turnin' in, pervided nobody's gone and took possession of my 'stablishment."

But just as Tim was bracing himself up to face the storm, some one came driving down the street at a furious rate, stopping so close to Tim that he took a step to get out of the way.

"Here, bub, hold my horse for me," said the gentleman, springing out; and handing the lines to Tim, he disappeared.

"Mebbe he'll give me as much as-five cents," thought Tim, when he had thoughtfully obeyed. I'll have a plate of hot beans and biscuits. give me ten. Wouldn't I have a reg'lar then? But 'taint likely."

"If he does, P'r'aps he'll square meal

Five, ten, fifteen minutes passed. Tim's hands were pretty thoroughly benumbed when at last the gentleman returned in as much haste as he had gone away.

"Here's something for you," he said, dropping a couple of coins into Tim's hand, then springing into his buggy. Tim went under the nearest gaslight to examine.

"Je-ru-sa-lum!" he gasped, as he saw two bright silver dimes in his rather grimy hands. Twenty cents seemed a small fortune to Tim, for there were so few things a poor little hunchback like him could do.

He would have such a supper, baked beans, biscuit, and a cup of coffee, and even a doughnut; he could have all that, and still have some money left for to-morrow. The richest man in the whole great city would have felt poor beside Tim, as clutching his treasure, he crossed the street. There, crouching in the shadow of a doorway, he spied two miserably forlorn little figures.

66

"Hullo!" he said. What you
doin' here?"
"Nuthin," replied the oldest, briefly.

"What makes you stay here then? Why don't you go home?" continued Tim.

"Hain't got none," was the reply; and then feeling the hearty, though unspoken sympathy of one of their own sort, the little waif added, as he drew his jacketsleeve across his eyes, "They carried mother up to the graveyard, yonder," pointing in the direction of the pauper burial ground "and we hasn't anybody now, nor nowheres to stay."

As Tim stood deliberating, the bakery door opened