young struggler, and had compared himself with the generous people in the
books with high gratification; but he was beginning to suspect now that
he had struck upon something fresh in the noble-episode line. His
enthusiasm took a chill. Still, he could not bear to repulse this
struggling young author, who clung to him with such pretty simplicity and
trustfulness.

Well, the upshot of it all was that the celebrated author presently found
himself permanently freighted with the poor young beginner. All his mild
efforts to unload this cargo went for nothing. He had to give daily
counsel, daily encouragement; he had to keep on procuring magazine
acceptances, and then revamping the manuscripts to make them presentable.
When the young aspirant got a start at last, he rode into sudden fame by
describing the celebrated author's private life with such a caustic humor
and such minuteness of blistering detail that the book sold a prodigious
edition, and broke the celebrated author's heart with mortification.
With his latest gasp he said, "Alas, the books deceived me; they do not
tell the whole story. Beware of the struggling young author, my friends.
Whom God sees fit to starve, let not man presumptuously rescue to his own
undoing."



THE GRATEFUL HUSBAND

One day a lady was driving through the principal street of a great city
with her little boy, when the horses took fright and dashed madly away,
hurling the coachman from his box and leaving the occupants of the
carnage paralyzed with terror. But a brave youth who was driving a
grocery-wagon threw himself before the plunging animals, and succeeded in