Amos stirred in John Allen's arms. What was that he was sounding-"The Recall"? The notes cut through to him over the cataclysmic roaring in his ears. No. By George, he was playing "Taps." Listen! The sad words rode on the eerie

tune:

"Soldier rest,

With the blest,

Where the star gleams afar. All the war
Now will cease;
Safe in peace,
Soldier rest."

What was the boy blowing "Taps" for, there on the battle-field?

Amos heard the thunder of marching feet. Young John Allen thought it was the rumble of the approaching storm. But the old man's glazing eyes picked up the hosts of soldiers striding out of the mist. Continentals and Andy Jackson's boys went past. The mist yielded a blur of blue and gray, and Amos saw his own, the soldiers of the Civil War.

With his ebbing strength he tried to rise and follow them, but his tired old

body held him to the earth. He tugged and wrenched, struggling mightily. Rain whispered from a black and angry sky, then fell on the two in torrents.

The old soldier lay panting on the soaked ground, and suddenly an eager knowledge of an approaching great peace poured in new strength. He slipped easily from the worn shell, huddled there against the wet earth, a militant shade armed with a shadowy gun, accoutred with phantom equipment. His feet trod lightly as they had ever done in his youth at the beginning of a long journey. This one, he knew, would be eternal. Counting, he caught up the susurrated cadence to which his ghostly comrades trudged, and slipped into his place in the spectral line.

Amos Appleby went marching on.

Young John Allen, holding the discarded body in his arms, wondered how he would break the news of Amos's passing to the girl who slept back yonder with the old man's great-grandchild stirring under her heart.

H, mother, aren't they funny!"

Peering over the young woman's furred and silken shoulder I followed the child's pointing finger and saw them coming up the gang-plank. From where I stood, on the promenade-deck, I could look almost directly down upon them. They were little and old-both over sixty, the wife perhaps a trifle the younger. She had on an indescribable hat-a flat, rhomboid conglomeration of black and white satin bows plainly dating from the past century; and thrown round her shoulders, but not covering her thin neck, was a sort of overall green cape, or inverness. The husband wore an ancient blue serge suit and gray fedora, and carried a thin coat in one hand, while he tugged at a large wicker suitcase with the other.

"Mother, aren't they fun-ny!"

They were just under us, coming aboard, and in spite of the clamor incidental to the departure of the great Pacific liner, must have heard the child's clear treble. The wife brought her left hand to her flat breast in a painful gesture, looked up at the little girl leaning on the rail beside her pretty, overdressed mother and smiled. Then they disappeared from sight as the main deck swallowed them up.

"Mother," repeated repeated the little girl again, "weren't they funny!"

The young mother gave a light laugh, somehow unpleasant for all its bell-like

sweetness.

"They're missionaries, Clara," she said contemptuously. "China missionaries."

Presently the last straggling passenger was aboard; the drum-like gongs beaten by white-coated Chinese stewards had frightened the last visitor ashore; the gang-plank was pushed back; and the President Adams drifted, at first imperceptibly and then with gathering speed,

away from the pier. The panorama of San Francisco gradually unfolded itself as the shuddering vibration of the screws began, and the tugs which had hitherto helped us fell astern shrieking shrill farewells. With sonorous voice our deeptoned whistle replied, saluting the continent, nation, and city. The Golden Gate lay straight ahead framing the setting sun; already one could feel the first warning lift of the ocean swell.

It was an old story to me (I represent a large New Jersey silk house and annually make the voyage), including a red-headed smart Aleck whom I found in what formerly had been the barroom.

"A dead bunch, George," he was remarking to the Chinese soft-drinks dispenser, while tilting a solacing flask of his own. "A dead bunch. Few live ones. Mostly damned, psalm-singing missionaries." Then turning to me: "Ever been over?"

I admitted I had.

"Often?"

"This is my nineteenth crossing." He let me enjoy my lemon-squash in silence.

There is usually a fair sea rolling just outside the Gate. There was one that night, and it made a difference in the number on hand for dinner. But the next morning dawned fine and comparatively quiet, if a little cold; and a full complement came in to breakfast.

I entered the dining-room somewhat late in order to see it. The second officer, a trim, well-set-up, sailorly looking chap in his late thirties, presided at our table and made us acquainted. A dark-haired, blue-eyed young woman, a Miss Merrill, sat at his left. She was a newspaper writer, I discovered afterward, a special correspondent for one of the Chicago papers. I came next. The Van Broghs of New York, mother and daughter-the former a tiny, apple-cheeked dumpling of a woman, the latter fair, tall, and slender

followed in the order named. They were wealthy people, I believe, travelling

eventually round the world for the daughter's health. A Mr. Todd, in whom I recognized the red-headed hero of my barroom encounter, completed the circle on the officer's right, though why he should have been accorded that seat of honor I cannot say. Indeed, I shall say little more about any of these folk; for aside from Todd, they had nothing to do with what I would relate.

The pretty woman of yesterday, I was somehow amused to note, sat much powdered and rouged at the captain's table in the centre of the room. He, a fat, jolly, red-faced, white-haired old fellow, was constantly laughing at her remarks. She was laughing too, and talking with lips, teeth, and eyes. Clara, her daughter -I now saw that she was a child of five or six-was playing with her grapefruit rather than eating it. The mother seemed

not to care.

Then, naturally, the sight of the child recalled the elderly couple who had astonished her so when coming aboard; and beginning again my search of faces, I finally found them over by the inner wall nearest the exit to the kitchens.

Behind the gleaming silver and white napery of their table they looked smaller and older and dingier than ever. The removal of the woman's hat had not improved her appearance. Her hair she wore in a tight knob on the top of her head, and the line or part straight down the middle accentuated its meagreness. His face, at first glance, was pale and weary. On more careful scrutiny, however, there was one thing I could not help noticing, even from a distance. This was the air of peace and hominess that seemed to surround them, a sense of background brought with them into this garish setting from a seldom-visited but palpably New England village home. About them clung a faint flavor of Emersonian fragrance, not of the intellect so much as of the emotions, perhaps; here has been high feeling and plain living, said I, paraphrasing Wordsworth to myself; and I felt a sudden warmth go out toward them that I shouldn't have thought possible two minutes before.

One way out of the dining-room led past their table. By the merest chance the captain, Clara, her mother, and I rose at

the same time. I stood aside waiting for them to precede me, and made a tail to their little procession. The captain and the lady were too engrossed in each other to have an eye for Clara-really a pretty little thing all lace and pink ribbonsand so it was up to me to rescue her orange when it rolled under the missionaries' table. That is to say, I tried to rescue it, but old Mrs. Missionary retrieved it first.

"Good morning, dear," she said, in a surprisingly rich contralto. And to me: "Their fingers are so uncertain, bless their hearts!"

Just then Clara's mother, pausing at the door, caught the end of the little scene.

"Clara, come here!" she called sharply. And with scarcely any attempt to lower her voice: "You stay away from those missionary people."

The little old lady smiled up at me out of such roguish blue eyes; and the little old man winked at me solemnly-as of course no lady could! Clara, half-comprehending, pudgy fingers encircling the orange, gazed back out of wide eyes at all of us, and then ran after her mother

The grinning deck-boy was arranging blankets and steamer-chairs as we came out.

"His name is Pong, father, and his mother lives in Hawaii."

"Not Ping Pong, mother? Well, I declare. I've often heard of you. Delighted to meet you, sir!"

"Father" extended his hand, and there was something so kindly, so youthfully infectious, in the chuckle with which he accompanied his mild jest, that "mother" and I laughed too, and the boy went away grinning more broadly than ever.

Their name, I soon discovered, was Scott, and they were returning to their work after a year's furlough. They were not China missionaries, but for many years had labored in Kyūshū, one of the islands of Japan. Otherwise they said little of themselves. But I found them very easy to talk to, and before I knew it I had shown them the latest snap-shot of Dorothy and our daughter Louise. They were pleased with it but didn't "gush. They really were interested, and without saying much seemed to urge: "Go ahead; tell us more!"

It was through them that that first morning I met and defeated the Reverend Frank Hendricks at shuffleboard. In a more athletic sort of contest such an outcome would have been impossible, since I am a small man and the Reverend Frank must have weighed all of two hundred and fifty. He pleaded guilty of having played centre on one of Dartmouth's Varsity elevens; later conversations brought out war experiences we had had in common, and after that we grew quite chummy.

"Lord!" exclaimed the red-headed Todd once, respectfully. "I'd hate to be thrown for a loss by that bird!"

Mr. Todd was in no danger. The Reverend Hendricks proved on acquaintance to be the most peaceable, sweet-tempered, and modest of men. But he was one missionary, as the lighter-minded aboard could see, and the male element recognized him politely.

"By the way, Hendricks," said I the last afternoon we were still this side of Honolulu, as we watched the flying-fish skim the indigo water in their effort to keep up with the ship, "you and I being pretty good pals, I'd like to ask you something. Something rather personal, however; so you don't have to answer if you don't want to. It's this: Why is a missionary

"Well" and though he still smiled with his lips I could see his eyes grow serious-"well, I guess, like other amusing things, we're funny because we're funny." He paused and seemed to consider a moment before going on.

"And, as a matter of fact, was there ever anything more audacious, to an outsider at least, than our attempt to carry light to civilizations that were old before ours was born; or more preposterous on the face of it-than our trying to 'con

vert the heathen' abroad while our own heathen are still in the seats of the mighty at home? On the other hand, the business people on our fields laugh at us and dislike us partly because of our 'unbusinesslike methods,' but chiefly because these methods and especially our ideals are often incompatible with theirsthough at the same time they take advantage of the atmosphere of good-will we create. Sentimentalists oppose us for this very reason: that we 'make exploitation possible'; forgetting, meanwhile, that our presence often softens the inevitable and makes this exploitation take a milder form than it otherwise would. Artists scorn us because they think we hate the beautiful; whereas, seriously, I have yet to hear of anything really beautiful a missionary has destroyed. Writers, when they condescend to visit our fields, are content for the most part to gain their opinions in port cities, from chair-warmers in comfortable hotel lobbies!"

Hendricks's great knuckles began to whiten and his eyes to flash. I was getting rather more than I had intended.

"Not that I defend our faults for an instant," he continued, more quietly: "our blunders, our inefficiencies-our mannerisms. And of course, like all idealistic movements, ours has its weak sisters and 'lunatic fringe.' I do not defend them. But the movement itselfand not to be too abstract, the average individual missionary-has high aims and is fundamentally sound." "But-" I hazarded.

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"But me no buts!"" He levelled at me a long forefinger. "Big business-the struggle for markets and the consequent mechanization of peoples-is what will 'ruin the East,' if not the whole world; not we missionaries. We are trying at least to save the pieces. If writers and artists generally could see this, if they had their wits about them-and the courage they'd laugh at you, not us. You are the enemy!"

As the representative of a comparatively innocent silk concern, whose only ambition was stable quotations and strict inspection of the product, I began to feel rather uncomfortable, and possibly my face also showed an amusing resentment;