little, but you'd have known him anywhere wouldn't you, Polly?"

"Oh, yes, Berry; he's just like his pa would have looked if he'd lived. Dear, dear, where have you dropped from? Let me see, how long

"I should say it's all of fifteen years, Mrs. Sellers."

"Well, well, how time does get away with us. Yes, and oh, the changes that

There was a sudden catch of her voice and a trembling of the lip, the men waiting reverently for her to get command of herself and go on; but, after a little struggle, she turned away with her apron to her eyes, and softly disappeared.

"Seeing you made her think of the children, poor thing-dear, dear, they're all dead but the youngest. But banish care; it's no time for it now-on with the dance, let joy be unconfided, is my motto-whether there's any dance to dance or any joy to unconfide, you'll be the healthier for it every time—every time, Washington—it's my experience, and I've seen a good deal of this world. Come, where have you disappeared to all these years, and are you from there now, or where are you from?"

"I don't quite think you would ever guess, Colonel. Cherokee Strip.”

"My land!"

"Sure as you live."

"You can't mean it. Actually living out there?"

"Well, yes, if a body may call it that; though it's a pretty strong term for 'dobies and jackass rabbits, boiled beans and slapjack, depression, withered hopes, poverty in all its varieties

"Louise out there?"

"Yes, and the children."

"Out there now?"

"Yes; I could n't afford to bring them with

"Oh, I see you had to come-claim against the Government. Make yourself perfectly easy -I'll take care of that.'

"But it isn't a claim against the Government." "No? Want to be a postmaster? That's all right. Leave it to me. I'll fix it."

"But it isn't postmaster-you're all astray yet."

"Well, good gracious, Washington, why don't you come out and tell me what it is? What do you want to be so reserved and distrustful with an old friend like me for? Don't you reckon I can keep a se—

"There's no secret about it-you merely don't give me a chance to

"

"Now, look here, old friend, I know the human race; and I know that when a man comes to Washington, I don't care if it's from Heaven, let alone Cherokee Strip, it's because he wants something. And I know that as a rule he's not going to get it; that he'll stay and try for another thing and won't get that; the same luck with the next

and the next and the next; and keeps on till he strikes bottom, and is too poor and ashamed to go back, even to Cherokee Strip; and at last his heart breaks and they take up a collection and bury him. There- don't interrupt me, I know what I'm talking about. Happy and prosperous in the Far West, wasn't I? You know that. Principal citizen of Hawkeye, looked up to by everybody, kind of an autocrat, actually a kind of an autocrat, Washington. Well, nothing would do but I must go as Minister to St. James's, the Governor and everybody insisting, you know, and so at last I consented-no getting out of it, had to do it, so here I came. A day too late, Washington. Think of that—what little things change the world's history—yes, sir, the place had been filled. Well, there I was, you see. I offered to compromise and go to Paris. The President was very sorry and all that, but that place, you see, didn't belong to the West, so there I was again. There was no help for it, so I had to stoop a little-we all reach the day some time or other when we've got to do that, Washington, and it's not a bad thing for us, either, take it by and large all round—I had to stoop a little and offer to take Constantinople. Washington, consider this-for it's perfectly true--within a month I asked for China; within another month I begged for Japan; one year later I was away down, down, down, supplicating with tears and anguish for the bottom office in the gift of the Government of the United States-Flint-picker

in the cellars of the War Department. And by George, I didn't get it."

"Flint-picker?"

"Yes. Office established in the time of the Revolution-last century. The musket-flints for the military posts were supplied from the Capitol. They do it yet; for although the flint-arm has gone out and the forts have tumbled down, the decree hasn't been repealed-been overlooked and forgotten, you see-and so the vacancies where old Ticonderoga and others used to stand still get their six quarts of gun-flints a year just the same."

Washington said musingly after a pause: "How strange it seems-to start for Minister to England at twenty thousand a year and fail for flint-picker at

"Three dollars a week. It's human life, Washington-just an epitome of human ambition and struggle, and the outcome; you aim for the palace and get drowned in the sewer.'

Then

There was another meditative silence. Washington said, with earnest compassion in his voice:

"And so, after coming here, against your inclination, to satisfy your sense of patriotic duty and appease a selfish public clamor, you get absolutely nothing for it."

"Nothing? The Colonel had to get up and stand, to get room for his amazement to expand. "Nothing, Washington? I ask you this: to be a Perpetual Member and the only Perpetual

Member of a Diplomatic Body accredited to the greatest country on earth-do you call that nothing?"

He

It was Washington's turn to be amazed. was stricken dumb; but the wide-eyed wonder, the reverent admiration expressed in his face, were more eloquent than any words could have been. The Colonel's wounded spirit was healed, and he resumed his seat, pleased and content. He leaned forward and said impressively:

"What was due to a man who had become forever conspicuous by an experience without precedence in the history of the world-a man made permanently and diplomatically sacred, so to speak, by having been connected, temporarily, through solicitation, with every single diplomatic post in the roster of this Government, from Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to the Court of St. James's all the way down to Consul to a guano rock in the Straits of Sundasalary payable in guan -which disappeared by volcanic convulsion the day before they got down to my name in the list of applicants? Certainly something august enough to be answerable to the size of this unique and memorable experience was my due, and I got it. By the common voice of this community, by acclamation of the people, that mighty utterance which brushes aside laws and legislation, and from whose decrees there is no appeal, I was named Perpetual Member of the Diplomatic Body representing the multifarious sovereignties and