wanted to know if I had succeeded in making arrangements to get on to Granada. As I told him I had, his anxiety for my welfare seemed to increase, and still grasp ing my hand as though he would extract the whole truth and nothing but the truth from me, he took me aside, demanding to know over and over again if I was sure. "You know, I felt so sorry for you," he said. "I told the young man so, the one with the whip, and he felt sorry, too. But I am only a poor priest. I could have gone a dollar on you, and I have it here in my pocket now. If you will take it, you shall have it." And he even showed me the dollar and tried to press it upon me.

I thanked him for his kindness, and in a tone of still greater anxiety he implored me to tell him truly if I was certain that I had arranged everything all right. His friend stood by grinning, and, to convince him, I invited them both to take a drink. For the purpose we went over to an old Jeronomite monastery opposite, which had been turned into an inn, where there was another hearth, a blazing fire, an overhanging chimney, and a circle of Spaniards under it, like those at José's.

With jingling bells and trumpet-notes, a double string of eight mules came dashing around the corner, swinging with toppling peril the stage-coach behind them. They brought up at the posada door with a jerk and an emphasized jingle of the bells. The big, fat Spaniard, stepping into the firelight, called me "Don Tomas," as though he had known me all his life, and holding up my watch so that all could

witness the transaction, said: "Here is your watch, and I want all to bear witness that I give it to the mayoral, who will take it in the coach with Don Tomas to Granada, where he can redeem it at his leisure."

The bronzed, wrinkled mayoral took the watch, bowed, and said I need have no care; he would fulfil his part of the trust. Then we all went out and gathered about the stage-coach in the moonlight. The priest, whose destination was Guadix, said his confrère, the little fat priest, had induced him to stop with him another day, and shaking hands with me cordially, repeated his name so quickly that I could never remember it-a long string of names. He said he was my friend, and, though only a poor priest, if ever I came his way I could count upon his poor lodgings and all he possessed as my own. A vision of those bandboxes and the bursting valise spilled over the car, and the dollar in his pocket, flashed across my mind. We shook hands again and all around, as though that one Yankee in the midst of those Spaniards had been an old acquaintance of lifelong standing. I glanced up at the grinning moon, and with one last look at the priests and the fat Spaniard, I crawled into the narrow coach, where I was followed by five other passengers. With the crack of the whip and the shouts of the postilion, we were soon swaying around the edge of the town and climbing up the mountain, leaving Baza, its quaint posadas and quaint people, things of the past, with other quaint countries and quaint people before me.

IN the pleasant days of antiquity, when people were content to take life tranquilly and worshiped a race of gods and goddesses as easy-going as themselves, a certain discontented mortal, Sisyphus by name, jealous of his papa-in-law (Atlas, supporter of the universe), started out to achieve a reputation for himself as financier and founder of enterprises. He, however, quickly got into trouble, being both rapacious and avid, so was promptly ordered off to Hades for his sins. To be energetic and grasping was then the surest way to exasperate public opinion, for it was an epoch when all reasonable people and even the gods themselves asked for nothing better than to sit in the shade and be comfortable.

In order to make his punishment coördinate this culprit's crime, he was condemned for all eternity to shoulder a rock up a mountain-side, only to see it go bounding down into the valley again as soon as he had got it laboriously to the top.

This story and that of the hungry wight who was always being tempted by good cheer just out of reach crop up continually in the writings of that day, both tales being amusingly illustrative of the Greek spirit and an age when to enjoy a cultivated leisure was considered as about the summum bonum of existence.

Fancy the amazement of those Attic peoples (who, between ourselves, may not have been so very far wrong in their view of life) had they been told that a race would one day spring up, quite as civilized as themselves and possessing far greater opportunities for cultivation and enjoyment, every member of which, rich as well as poor, would look upon weary Sisyphus's task as the one reasonable and commendable occupation for a gentleman.

Yet this view is almost universal in our land to-day, where an all-pervading rustle of bank-notes distracts men's minds so completely from the real aims of existence. Sisyphus is now held up as a model of industry and application. Parents urge their offspring to waste no time in preliminaries, but knuckle down as early as possible to the chief problem of to-day, the rolling of stones uphill, or, to put the idea minus the metaphor, the endless and aimless piling up of treasure, not for any enjoyment the store may bring its possessor (that is a minor consideration), but simply for the sake of accumulation.

To make this point clear, it may be as well to descend from classic myth to the present day and a purely personal anecdote.

I count among my acquaintances a clever St. Louis youth who, on his father's death six months ago, found himself the possessor of a comfortable fifty thousand dollars a year. The lad, who, by the way, bears one of the historic names of America (counting generals and statesmen among his ascendants), gave proof while at college of more than usual intelligence. Had not the "dollar" been so openly worshiped in this youth's surroundings, he would have developed into a desirable member of society and served his country to some good purpose, either in diplomatic posts abroad or by adding his mite toward the muchneeded purifying of administration at home; he would, in short, have chosen one of the many paths that lead through the training of the mind to high achievement, for he had both ability and ambition.

Now, what do you suppose the boy did on coming into his fortune? Meditate on any of these plans or dream of making his life a pleasure to himself and useful to his fellow-men?

Not a bit of it! Being a youth of his

day, and inoculated with the madness raging over all this country, he walked straight off to a friend of his, the president of a trust, and asked for a place in the concern. Quite a modest post was offered him, with a salary of two thousand dollars a year. This he eagerly accepted, and is now grinding away the priceless springtime of life in quarters and under conditions he would hesitate to impose on one of his grooms.

Happening to be in St. Louis about the time my friend shouldered his self-im posed burden, I found, to my amazement, that this act had called forth a murmur of approbation from his large circle of friends.

"Was n't it fine of him?" said a wealthy widow I was conveying in to dinner the evening of my arrival. "Such an example for other young men! Really quite noble; don't you think so?" And her fat neck heaved under a cargo of diamonds it had cost her late spouse nervous prostration at forty, and his life several years later, to provide. "Just the sort of young man my husband would have admired."

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'Do you really want to know what I think?" I asked, unfolding my napkin. "Well, then, young B's act seems to me simply despicable." This was perhaps said with more emphasis than the subject warranted, for my neighbor positively gasped in her bewilderment. If I had emptied my glass of sauterne into her lap, her consternation could not have been greater.

"You are joking," she gurgled. "You surely would not have a young man remain idle all his life? Remember "-this with an amusing assumption of seriousness we are warned not to bury our talents in a napkin."

"But that's just what the poor boy is preparing to do," I cried: "burying them deep in the folds of bonds and bank-notes. Don't you think that it would be more worthy of his name and a better use of his opportunities if he-"

But there I stopped, for it was perfectly evident that, to the stout matron absorbing terrapin at my elbow, there could be but one answer to such a question. According to the creed of her class (a large one, alas! at the present day), man had been placed upon the earth by a beneficent Providence simply to make as much money

as possible. There could be no middle course between "being idle" (shocking idea!) and making money. The latter task (evidently man's first duty) must be pursued before any such frivolous side issues as health, the cultivation of individual tastes, or civic duties.

When I see intelligent people approving a life thus mapped out, from which all but one sordid ambition is effaced, it recalls the Irishman's idea of how statues are made. "It 's simple enough," he explained. "All a sculptor has to do is to take a big block of marble and just chip off all that is n't necessary for the figure."

The recipe for making a modern millionaire is not so very different. Take a robust, intelligent youth,-one with a not toodelicate sense of honor preferred,-carefully pare off all tastes and ambitions which do not tend to the accumulation of capital, put to boil over a quick fire of business competition, add a dash of piracy, sprinkle with self-confidence, dress your dish with sprigs of conceit, and serve-cold.

It's easy enough to foretell the future of my Western Sisyphus. Having drowned all his pleasant inclinations at their birth, like unpromising puppies, and settled down to a life of accumulation, he will quickly associate himself with the nabobs of tomorrow. Indeed, his chief idea in entering the trust was to meet such men and be included in their deals. The net result of twoscore years of toil will be, if paresis does not bar his road, that at sixty my friend will have the satisfaction of seeing his name on the list of those whom Wall street delighteth to honor-and forgets six months after their demise.

Just what he will do with all his wealth once it has been acquired is a matter to which he has probably never yet given a moment's consideration, beyond a vague impression that sometime when he has the leisure he will begin to spend and enjoy it. The magnates he knows and envies are, one and all, as incapable of disbursing a tithe of their incomes as they are of appreciating a work of art or really enjoying foreign travel.

It is perfectly evident that a lad who at twenty could see no nobler use for fifty thousand a year than to put it out at interest will derive but little satisfaction in old age from a greater income, beyond perhaps the platonic joy of summing it up on paper.

ONE bitter morning last winter, when sleet and rain were battling for mastery of the black streets, untoward circumstances forced me into an elevated train at an hour when more fortunate beings were sipping matutinal coffee by their firesides. Having elbowed a way into the car, I found myself face to face with one of America's oldest bigwigs (my St. Louis friend matured and ripened, as it were), clinging precariously to an overhead strap. In reply to my look of amazement, B. W. answered: "Yes, I'm always out as early as this. Have not missed a day at my office for forty years. These trains are uncomfortable, it's true, but they get one downtown so much quicker than a cab, and, I can tell you, in times like these one can't afford to lose an hour!"

The acquisition of property for which the possessor has little or no use is fast becoming the dominant passion of our age. When a nation indulges in the weakness, it is, I believe, called "imperialism," and hides behind a screen of patriotism. Individuals and corporations excuse their greed in much the same way. All classes and conditions feel the ambient suggestion. Even our women are bitten by the madness. A dance is an excellent place to study, in miniature, this struggle for the unnecessary, which, for prosperous people, replaces the "struggle for life" of the poor, and goads us poor mortals like Io's insistent gadfly.

Few sights are more amusing (to any one who looks beneath the surface) than the eagerness of wealthy maids and matrons to obtain the trinkets distributed during the figures of a cotillion. So strong is this that you will see tired elderly dames - who would be so much better at home and in bed-sitting doggedly through the dull early hours of an entertainment and an untouched supper, waiting for the "german" to begin.

The next noon finds my lady eying with languid disgust the trash piled on her chaise longue, and wondering why on earth she took the trouble to carry such rubbish home. Is this heap of gauze and gilded sticks the trophy she was so eager to obtain eight hours before, the desire for which had made her smile invitingly on men she disliked, flatter beardless boys, flirt with dotards, and (be it whispered under the breath) commit other little infamies to secure?

"Why," exclaims my intelligent reader, "it was not those toys your lady wanted, but the triumph they represent. What pleased her was having more favors than a rival, the carrying off of spoil under the eyes of the enemy." A dance is the battle-field of some women; it is there they measure the height of their success, the width of their popularity. Those parasols and flimsy straw hats, that no power on earth would induce them to wear, are but the badges and insignia of victory, the outward and tangible signs of success. That the spoil should be turned over to a maid, and end in the dust-heap, was a foregone conclusion.

The ambition of our great financiers is much the same, only in Wall street the tune is played in a higher key and with full orchestral accompaniment.

When we hear of old Croesus using up his torpid liver in midnight conferences, does any one suppose it is because he feels the necessity of more money? Preposterous! He cannot, as it is, reckon up his possessions without the aid of a bookkeeper, and as far as personal wants go, the income of his income would largely suffice. Millions are but the cotillion favors of such men. It is the vanity of pushing through a "deal" or astonishing the world by the daring of a new combine that holds them with their noses to the grindstone.

One would simply sigh at such wasting of life's heyday and pass the matter by, if it were not that, in order to succeed, Dives will (like his wife at a dance) cajole the unworthy, consort with men he despises, and receive at his table fellow-promoters of more than doubtful records, provided they can aid the scheme on which he has set his heart.

Just where honorable industry ends and avaricious piling up of treasure begins no one can take it upon himself to say. The spirit, however, that impels a young man to sacrifice all the nobler aims of life in order to turn a liberal competence into wealth too great to be spent (and the giving away of which, unless carefully regulated, is a doubtful good) is certainly to be deplored, in spite of what the fat lady in St. Louis thinks.

WHEN for my sins I sit next to one of these money-making machines at dinner or club, he gives me the same sensation