can vaguely recall the incident now, though at first I could not. I wrote to I wrote to the station-master and had him investigate the worthiness of the case, and he acted for me. The letter went on to say that on Christmas morning a sleigh drawn by a white horse arrived at the house where the little boy lived, leaving a package from C. M. Depew, agent for Santa Claus, containing a doll and a pair of nickel-plated skates. The man described the boy's youthful glee and gratitude. The clipping, yellow with age, had been treasured by his grandfather and later by his father, and he requested that I return it to him."

I had seen Mr. Depew on the previous day at a Monday morning concert, and asked him how he enjoyed the music. He was full of praise for what he had heard, and, the occasion being rendered additionally interesting by the presence of the Grand Duchess Cyril and her party and a distinguished company generally, no detail seemed to have escaped him. This amazingly young old man had every bit of occurrence and gossip at the tip of his tongue with a freshness and acuteness of observation and humor that few could equal.

The close view that I had had of the grand duchess revealed much charm and humor in the face that photographed badly for the newspapers, and Mr. Depew was able to attest that this indication was not misleading. A friend presented him to her, saying that he was the best teller of stories in America. With a merry smile of anticipation she demanded:

"Tell me some of those stories!" Their conversation continued until their separation by the process of seating at table, and the impression of this

royal lady that remained with him was flattering indeed.

An anecdote about H. G. Wells was interesting.

"He was here to report the Washington Arms Conference for one of the great newspapers," my sitter said, "but he was too much of a pessimist to succeed in doing it properly. A dinner was given him in New York, and in the speech that he made his reference to the conference was lugubrious indeed. He declared that no good could come from it. Civilization was played out, with no possibility of recovery, moral, economic, or other. He finally concluded with the statement, "The world has gone to smash!' A silence followed his woeful forecast, and a gloomier-looking lot than the guests around that table would be hard to imagine. I could not agree with this. so I arose and took issue with him. I had not finished before a return of optimism was apparent, and when I resumed my seat the company broke into cheers."

Another story was delicious:

"On my ninetieth birthday I was overwhelmed by a horde of reporters, camera men, and cinema operators. I had to pose in various attitudes for the cameras, and there were the usual requests for stories and copy of other kinds, as well. In the crowd was a green cub reporter with his hat tilted over one ear, a mannerism that always denotes an exaggerated ego. He swaggered out from among his fellows, and with an air of importance and assumed assurance addressed me.

""What is there about this birthday of yours that the newspapers seem to be so excited about?'

"Well, I am ninety years old,' I replied. Few men reach that age.'

"Some do, and there's no such hullabaloo made about it,' he continued. 'So you were born on the twentythird of April?' "'Yes.'

""I was born on May twelfth, and there's no fuss made about that.'

"'But,' I said, 'on April twentythird St. George and Shakspere and I were all born.'

"This seemed to stagger him a bit, but after a momentary hesitation, he said:

"Oh, yes. Same year?'

This brought from me a hearty laugh, and I asked Mr. Depew if the last remark was the result of wit or ignorance.

"The latter, absolutely. It was evident that he had never before heard of either St. George or Shakspere." When my sketch was completed and I was taking my leave of this delightful man, I said to him:

"In this matter of longevity, Senator Depew, you are like Grandfather Squeers. You have the hang of it

now,' and can repeat. Promise me that I may come to see you on your hundredth birthday."

"Do, by all means," he laughingly

replied. "I shall be charmed. And make another sketch of me to commemorate the occasion!"

DON MARQUIS

June of last year is rich with pleasant memories for me. Friends took me to their camp high in the mountains of Maine, about forty miles from a railway station and within sight of the range, still snow-capped, that marked the Canadian border. In the many lakes that surrounded us we caught larger trout than I had ever even seen before. That alone would

mark the year for one who regards good fishing as synonymous with bliss, but add to that the joys of the tramps over trails through virgin forests, breathing deep of the clean cold air, glimpsing deer, grouse, and porcupines from time to time, with occasional signs of bear; eating excellent food, often cooked in the open, with an appetite that is usually denied one in cities; returning to the roaring fire of logs in the camp at night, and I can hardly imagine a cup fuller of joy and contentment. The hours after dinner were the best of all, watching the flames, and listening to the musical cadences of the voice of our hostess rising and falling in apparent unison with the fire and the tall, dancing shadows on the walls. Now she is reading a tale for fishermen calculated to make our exploits seem puny, but affording a recompense for this robbery in the wealth of humor combined with a world of rhythm:

"Noah, and Jonah, and Cap'n John

Smith

Some months later, by appointment, I met Mr. Marquis at the office of the "Tribune." His rule is to do his work at his home in Forest Hills, and as we entered the editorial rooms, many of the employees rushed forward to greet him, young and old addressing him as "Don." I was pleased by his wholehearted cordiality to them all; their attitude spoke volumes for the affection that they hold for him. We found an unoccupied room where the light was sufficient for our purpose, and my sketch was begun.

"I hope you will forgive me if I open some letters and glance at the newspaper from time to time. I'll keep to the pose as nearly as possible, and give you all the time you want after I have finished. The fact is, I have not yet done my column to-day. It will not take very long."

He read several letters aloud. One was from a religious enthusiast who had taken literally a humorous item in "The Lantern," and wished to enlist him in some visionary crusade. Another letter yielded a squib, a third was a verse in French that he handed to me for translation, rejecting it on the doubtful grounds of my slender knowledge of that language. Glancing over a newspaper, he read aloud, groaning from time to time that there was nothing in the papers these days. The election was only recently over, so I suggested:

"How about La Follette? He ought to be good for a crack or two." He smiled.

"I voted for that son of a gun," he told me. "Not that I was so much in love with his ideas, but because I would like to see the old parties smashed up a bit. It would do them good, and I don't think that La Fol

lette would do any harm if he were in power."

"He would doubtless turn out to be a conservative, like Ramsay MacDonald," I replied. "But to return to the column, if you were an English humorist, you might, in time of dire need, resort to a bit of punning, and say that Peter Pan petered out the other night."

"Yes," he replied, "or that it did n't pan. The humor of the English is better than their wit. The latter is a bit prone to run to puns, but their humor is more tied to reality than ours. I think this to be a good thing in some ways. Our sheer nonsense, especially, is not likely to be appreciated over there. It is almost incomprehensible to them."

I complimented Mr. Marquis on the variety of rhythms and meters that his verses reveal, and asked if he thought that any new inventions or discoveries had been made in this field in recent times. Some claims of this sort are made for modern poetry, and similar honors have been heaped, prematurely in my opinion, on certain exponents of jazz.

"I am quite convinced that no new meters have appeared," he replied. "They can all be traced to old sources, and apparently new effects are really nothing more at best than combinations of old ones. The rhythms are more insisted upon in some cases, giving a feeling of novelty; but analysis of them reveals the old forms that are enumerated, for instance, in Sidney Lanier's book on the subject. The Gilbert and Sullivan meters are all old, and for the most part simple ones that are best adapted to humor."

Having recorded with my crayon the vigorous planes of his massive head,