killed by pirates in the Spanish West Indies, in the next chapter to
the last you have a scene where she goes to a surprise-party at the
Presbyterian minister's and finds him there making arrangements for
the wedding as if nothing had ever happened; and then, after you
disclose the fact that she was a boy in disguise, and not a woman at
all, you marry them to each other, and represent the boy heroine as
giving her blessing to her daughter. Oh, it's awful--awful! It won't
do. It really won't. You'd better go into some other kind of business,
Mr. Stack."

Then Stack took his manuscript and went home to fix it up so as to
make the story run together better. The _Patriot_ will not publish it
even if Stack reconstructs it.

* * * * *

Major Slott, like most other editors, is continually persecuted by
bores, but recently he was the victim of a peculiarly dastardly attack
from a person of this class. While he was sitting in the office of the
_Patriot_, writing an editorial about "Our Grinding Monopolies," he
suddenly became conscious of the presence of a fearful smell. He
stopped, snuffed the air two or three times, and at last lighted a
cigar to fumigate the room. Then he heard footsteps upon the stairs,
and as they drew nearer the smell grew stronger. When it had reached a
degree of intensity that caused the major to fear that it might break
some of the furniture, there was a knock at the door. Then a man
entered with a bundle under his arm, and as he did so the major
thought that he had never smelt such a fiendish smell in the whole
course of his life. He held his nose; and when the man saw the
gesture, he said,