THE DRAG OF THE UNDERTOW.

RANK MEDAIRY had a dull headache. He had received a case of champagne the day before, and he and his friends had made a night of it. Hence the headache and general

out of sorts feeling.

A young lawyer of more than ordinary promise, Medairy had already made a name by his successful management of two or three cases; and he was looked upon as one of the rising men at the bar.

I don't like this,' he said to himself, on seeing his hand shake a little as he raised a cup of coffee to his lips; these champagne suppers run a fellow's nerves."

Ile tried to eat, but had no appetite. He must get toned up before De was the for anything. So be left the table and went to the bar. That's your sort" he said to himself as he felt the exhilaration creening over his nerves. Nothing like a little good brandy."

As the billiard room he met one or two friends. After a fry games they went to the bar for "drinks" drawn thither by an apperta winch was beginning to act with a steady but unregarded force.

Have you seen anything of Bradford this morning?' asked Madry, addressing a friend, whose name was Henderson.

~Not I called in Congress Hay, but be badn't put in an innerHis head sat as strong as it might be.'

<tm a Miele aband of Bruttori," Matairy answered, gravely

'I am,' replied Medairy. A dip in the sea gives me new life. It refreshes me like wine.'

'And like wine it has an undertow,' said Millwood; and both are treacherous.'

To this remark neither Medairy nor Henderson made any reply. The day was brilliant, the water warm, the breeze fresh, and the tide came rolling in with its great waves that broke and seethed along the shore. Hundreds of bathers were in the sea. Medairy, in his bathing-dress, walked slowly across the beach. There was a thoughtful shade upon his face.

The fact was, the remark of Millwood about the undertow had taken an unpleasant hold of him. Twice during his visit to the seaside this season he had, while bathing, been nearly dragged from his feet by the under-current, and the danger was magnifying itself in his thoughts. A resolution to be on guard would have proved sufficient to remove the concern that was troubling him, if it had not been that the fear of another and more dangerous undertow had found a lodgment in his mind—a fear which he was trying to shake off; but the more he tried the more closely it clung, and the more it magnified itself. He paused as his feet touched the water, and an inflowing wave lifted itself half way to his knees. But the returning drift was scarcely perceived, and he moved forward until he reached the line where the surf combed and broke.

As wave after wave struck and went over him, Medairy felt his wonted exhilaration coming back. It was not long before he found himself a little beyond the breakers; but being a good swimmer a few strokes brought him nearer shore, and within the line of safety. He felt such a vigour in his arms—such pride in his strength and manhood. Fear! A sense of danger! These were for weaker men! So, disporting now amid the breakers, and now venturing beyond them, Medairy spent nearly half an hour.

Suddenly, as he was struggling in a surf that broke unexpectedly over him, while further from the shore than any of the prudent bathers had ventured, he felt his strength depart, and at the same moment the reflex movement of the undertow struck him with unusual force, and bore him out from the land. By the time he was able to recover his self-possession, and to bring into action his skill as a swimmer, he found himself drifting steadily from the shore, and unable to make any head against the out-running current. He threw up his hands in sign of distress, and called loudly for help; but so long a time passed before the lifeboat could reach him, that he lost consciousness, and sank twice below the surface. As his white face came gleaming up through the dark water a second time, a strong hand grasped him. But life was apparently extinct.

'It was that cursed and treacherous undertow!'

Medairy's friends, Henderson, Bradford, and Millwood, were sitting round his bed, discussing the accident and its well-nigh fatal termination. It was Millwood who made the remark.

'Cursed and treacherous! You may well say so,' answered Medairy, whose memory held a vivid impression of that brief struggle in the surf when the breakers threw him from his feet and he found himself

helpless in the grasp of the undertow, which seemed to spring upon him treacherously in the moment of his weakness. 'You see,' he added, 'I stayed in too long. I ought to have known that it was only the excitement of the bathing, and not my reserve of strength, that was keeping me up, and that they could not last for ever.'

"There is,' said Millwood, speaking with great sobriety of manner, 'an undertow more treacherous and fatal than the one which came

so near dragging our friend Medairy to a watery grave. Some of us have felt it; I for one; and it has come near tripping me on more than one occasion, To-day I have the strength to stand against it. But is there not danger, if I remain too long amid the rush and excitement of the breakers, that it may fail in some stronger sweep of the undertow, and that I may float out seaward, helpless, and drown? Such things happen every day, and we know it. There is in every glass of champagne, or brandy, or beer that we drink, an undertow as surely as in the wave that strikes the shore and draws itself back again into the sea. And besides, we see almost daily one and another drifting out from the shore and drowning, while we stand looking on unable to rescue. A thousand are lost every year in the drag of this undertow to one in that from which Medairy has just escaped. There, I've said my say. If the other side wants to speak, the floor is vacant. I'll listen, and weigh the arguments.'

But no one answered him.

'I think,' said Medairy, turning to Henderson, and speaking in a lighter tone, yet still seriously, 'that I shall have to beg off from your champagne supper to-morrow night. I want to study up this undertow business. It hasn't a good look.'

'All right; I'll excuse you. And, what's more, if the rest don't care, I'll telegraph Steel not to send the wine I wrote for yesterday. I don't like the idea of that undertow of Millwood's at all. I never thought of it before. And, to tell the truth, it has given me several warning pulls in the last few months.'

There was present the young man Bradford, referred to in the beginning. He had not spoken during this conversation. He had been at Medairy's supper on the night before, and this was not the first time that a morning's shame and repentance had followed upon a night's excess.

'Telegraph!' he said, as Henderson ceased speaking, and with an emphasis that drew all eyes upon him. There was no mistaking the signs in his face. He had been in the grip of the undertow as surely as his friend who lay weak and exhausted upon the bed, and was in almost as much danger of drifting out to sea and drowning as his friend had been a few hours before.

'Then we're all agreed,' said Henderson, rising. 'I'll go at once and telegraph Steel not to send the champagne. You can study the undertow question, and let me know the result when I come back.'

What the conclusion was we are not informed; but it will do the reader no harm to study the question for himself, and he will find that the undertow of an indulged appetite sets harder against a man than anything else, and comes, sooner or later, to act with an almost resistless force.

T. S. ARTHUR.