is no honor so high, or distinction so covetable, as to be a sharer of human joys and sorrows, and an intimate, even though it be in misery and solitude, of the hearts of men; and to this brotherhood, sharing the common lot, the poor undeniably contribute by far the greater numbers.

The grandeurs of the wealthy are but a brief pageant. The beggar who looks on, as did Horatio, at this pageant, without envy, and who, looking on, gives a gentle patronage to the rich, does so not without warrant. The greater splendors and possessions are his own. Let them decorate their stately halls; let them transport, as I have known them to do, entire ceilings from Venetian palaces, tapestries from chambers of those who also long ago once were great the glory of the sun will not be subsidized, the halls of the morning are lit with unmatchable splendors, and the palace chambers of the night are hung by mightier ministrants with tapestries of a finer weave, and ceiled with stars for the mere vagrant and the vagabond who shall sleep some day beneath them, without monument and unremembered.

Do not these know life more nearly? Who has flattered them? Who has shielded them from infancy, from the great powers? Who has defended them? Have not these, like Edipus and other kings' sons, been exposed upon the very rocks of time; and have they not survived that circumstance? Sorrow and Death have dealt with them more nearly, and without ambassadors. They have had audience with reality; they have talked with Life without interpreters.

He who loves this world, and has found it good on such terms, may be allowed his reasonable preference; he who speaks fondly still of life, who has had such communings, may speak with some authority. Horatio's smile was

worth the pleasantness and optimism of a thousand who have never made change with blue fingers, or shrunk from the cut of the cold.

And if you tell me that none but a sentimentalist would call poverty an enrichment, then I can only assume that you have never been poor; and if you tell me that the high behavior of Horatio is at the best but endurance, even then, could I grant you so much, the argument still would hold. Even so, Horatio endured life with a noble grace, and helped others to do so; even so, he was able still to find pleasure in a fate from which the wealthy would shrink in horror, and lovable traits in one they would have called his bitterest enemy. He had blessed the life which had cursed him, and had loved it though it had despitefully used him.

So he triumphed - yet without pride; nor did one hear in his spirit's victory any hint of animosity, or talk of reprisals, or bitterness, or demand for indemnities, or hidden hate. Rather, he was to be found each day undefeated in his impregnable gentleness, that still unfallen province in which he dwelt. His were some incalculable riches of the spirit which Poverty had heaped up and amassed for him through those years when his fingers handled without complaint the miserable pennies; his was some towering strength under the disguise of the weak and broken body; like that Olympian glory fabled inevitably to appear some time, under the mortal humility of gods in exile. There was about him, for all his slenderness, something grand, something epic, and allegorical. He might have stood as a symbol of a downtrodden people, such nations as the world (be it said to our shame) sees still, and that not in small numbers-crushed, oppressed by the arrogant, the strong, yet still surviving and giving to the other nations their gifts of gay song

or heroic endurance, and out of an incredible bounty still bestowing love and kindness and beauty on the world which has behaved toward them without mercy.

Look, if you will, at the beggar nations of the world, and search the heart of the poor among peoples, and I am convinced that you will find in these also corroborative evidence of truths I have tried here to touch upon but lightly. Let be their follies and their mistakes and all their incredible assumptions: who shall declare that poverty has not enriched them likewise?

And among them, shall you not find high and royal and single spirits, who, like Horatio, have both known and loved the world and triumphed over it without animosity? To have known and loved the world! Is not this the true test after all, and the indisputable mark of a king's son? And shall you not find it oftener among the poor than elsewhere? For he cannot be said to know the world who has never been at its mercy; as only he can be said to have triumphed over it who, having suffered all things at its hands, yet loves it with unconquerable fidelity.

I

BILL did n't live in the proverbial gilded cage, hung between lace curtains, where he could scatter birdseed and music over his admiring friends. Bill's home was at the bottom of a mine in a northern sector of the Allies' lines in France. It was damp and dark - at least, that part of it not reached by the light of flickering candles was dark. There were no lace curtains. The walls and ceiling were provided by Mother Earth herself, aided and abetted by carefully selected Welshmen who had devoted their lives to learning the simplest and quickest way to shore the galleries of a mine. For these talents they were enlisted in the Corps of Engineers.

Not far from 'Chalk Street,' a trench that wound through a labyrinth of piled bags of chalk, there lay an insignificant branch trench not dignified by a name. At the end of this smaller trench two dark holes led down into the earth. The smaller one, to the right hand, ended far below, in a tangle of wrecked timbers and caving earth. It was a relic of the days of German occupation. Within the opposite hole, leading steeply down into the earth, was a ramp of heavy planking, crossed at intervals with slats, that one might brace the feet for safe descent. At the mouth a working party of infantry passed an endless stream of bags of chalk from hand to hand, to be piled finally in even rows about the tops of the adjacent trenches. This was done

at night. Before dawn a few shovelsful of earth were scattered over the new bags, that the watchful 'Fritz' might not deduce from them the mining operations that were in progress, and 'strafe' the locality.

At intervals of a few feet along the ramp leading down into the mine sat chalk-smeared soldiers, each in a little circle of light from his candle stuck to a near-by timber with a handful of the plastic chalk. Overhead, and at the sides, the chalk bulged inward between the shoring of timber and planking. Weird shadows from the candlelight danced about the walls. From the bottom of the shaft came the incessant creaking of a hand-windlass hoisting the chalk bags from a still lower level. These were handed up to the men posted along the ramp, who in turn passed them to the party at the mouth of the pit, for final disposal.

About the windlass was grouped a little party of soldiers who relieved each other at the hoisting. A series of ladders with hand ropes led to the lower gallery eighty feet below the hoist. Here men of the Engineer Corps were at work. Some were busily picking the chalk from the walls, while others shoveled the lumps into the bags for hoisting above.

The chamber was some twenty or thirty feet square, and was lighted by candles stuck on convenient ledges scooped out here and there in the hard chalk. By the light of one of these Sergeant Campbell of the Engineers, and Corporal Murray of the Infantry, argued over a muddy slip of paper which the sergeant held and slapped with a chalky forefinger to emphasize his remarks.

'Ye'll get no more candles,' he said. "The last shift o' infantry warked every mon by a half candle, and it's in their thievin' pockets were the other halves. D'ye think the Engineers are

proveedin' candles for a' the doogoots in the sector? Can ye no haud ye' lads in hond?' The sergeant was no Welshman, though he had, in his time, worked much in the coal districts of Wales. 'I'll gie ye fifty, nor you nor any other body shall hae more!'

The signed slip for obtaining the candles once safely in hand, the corporal began an angry reply, but ceased abruptly. Both men looked upward to a little wicker cage hanging on the wall. The sounds of pick and shovel ceased, and the men stood leaning idly on their tools, as most exquisite song poured from the throat of the little feathered songster in the cage. 'That Bill bird was spilling it again,' in the language of the men.

The tiny canary, with head tipped back, and eyes half closed, trilled on, unconscious of its grim surroundings and the listening men. With wings a-flutter, and little body swelling in its effort, the song flowed on, while the men stood embarrassed by their own emotion at the homelike sound. It was not unusual for Bill to sing, but each song was like a first appearance, and gained for him a sympathetic hearing that a prima donna might have envied. The trills and runs went up and down as the little singer willed, sounding strangely sweet in the unusual surroundings. Somewhere a man dropped a tool, and the reverberating clang of metal ended the song, and brought a shower of curses on the clumsy one.

An Engineer officer slid down the ladder and strode up to the sergeant, wiping his hands on his riding breeches as he came. The two non-commissioned officers came smartly to attention, but the sappers, mindful of the Field Service Regulations which ignore officers where work is to be done, busied themselves with their digging.

'Good-night, sir,' said the sergeant; 'there's been no change.'

'Yes,' replied the officer; 'I'll show you here. We heard them at 53 degrees northwest, at about forty feet distance and above. They were dragging ammunition boxes.'

The officer spread out a map of the mines and an outline of the trenches above. He and the sergeant examined them with much technical discussion.

The nearest sapper had ceased work, to repeat to a comrade what he had overheard about Sap 54. Noticing this, the sergeant turned to them and spoke sharply.

'Now, then, laddie, do ye get on wi' ye' wark. Fritz will no blow ye the night. When he does ye 'll ken naught about it. 'T is like the passing" whizzbang": if ye ken aught about it there's no harm done.'

The men silently began to shovel, with an enthusiasm that deceived no one.

The officer rolled his maps and called for silence. The men dropped their tools and sat down. The sergeant sent the infantry corporal above to warn every one to be quiet for 'listening.'

Unslinging an instrument from his shoulder, the officer scooped out a small hollow in the chalk with a hand-pick, and, applying the instrument to a flat surface, listened intently. The men stood silent, scarcely breathing. No one moved, or shuffled his feet, for to

After some fifteen minutes of patient listening, the officer put away his instrument and prepared to leave.

"There is nothing doing here,' he said. Mind the "blow" at 8.45. You should feel it but little here, sergeant.'

'I ken, sir. A bit of a mild earthquake, and a draught of air to snuff the candles it always is, sir.'

The officer consulted a compass, and made a few entries in a note-book. The sergeant gave him some slips of paper bearing reports of the progress of the work, and the number of bags of chalk removed in the last four-hour shift.

'Air been all right, sergeant?' the officer asked.

'Aye, sir; Bill here was singing us a whole grand opera just before you come, sir.'

'Ah! that 's good,' said the officer, taking down Bill's cage and inspecting the bird. If Bill keeps bright and cheerful, one of our worst difficulties is avoided. Don't let the men be feeding him rubbish. Canaries are not expensive, but it is difficult getting them when we want them.'

Hanging the cage up, the officer shook his finger playfully at the bird. 'Remember, Bill,' he said, 'the lives of this tunneling company depend on you. Your duty is a hard one; but when the air gets dangerously bad, you must fall from your little perch and die. You're one of the army now, Bill, and

you must give your life when the time comes, just as we must, that the "Unspeakable Hun" shall never crush civilization.'

The sergeant smiled. 'I'm thinking, sometimes, Bill's ancestors may have come from the Hartz Mountains in Germany, sir, but I dinna mention it to the men, for he has many friends among them the noo, an' they'd haud it against him.'

'Well, sergeant, the bird's duty is so simple, and so involuntary, that we need n't worry about his nationality. He couldn't betray us even if he was disloyal.'

The officer laughed as he turned away to mount the ladder. But he little knew. Poor Bill had heard the cock crow thrice, and though his little heart was loyal to his rough friends, who fed and tended him down there in the earth, he had been marked for a traitor - an innocent, but not less deadly

one.

II

After the officer left, Campbell busied himself with the work. As it neared the hour for the blow in 54, he directed a few extra timbers to be placed at points that he thought required a greater margin of safety. The explosion, although at a considerable distance, would rock the ground severely. The consequent compression on the supporting timbers at other parts of the mine would be very severe.

When the work was well under way, he took down Bill's cage and tidied it. He saw to the food, and after rinsing the little cup, refilled it from the military water-bottle at his own belt. Afterward he devoted a few moments to petting the bird which had become a great favorite with the men.

At 8.40 he ordered them to 'knock off.' The men sat about talking in low voices. The sergeant bent his arm so as

to bring his wrist-watch conveniently in sight. It had been set with headquarters by telephone. During the last two or three minutes he called off the time at intervals to the men. 'Eightforty-three!-and-a-half! — forty

four!

four!

forty-four-and-a-half!'

The men, knowing from experience the shock that would reach them even at that distance, rose and stood, some standing on tiptoe and opening their mouths, as artillerymen do when a heavy gun is to be fired.

'Forty-five!' There was no immediate shock. Some planking seemed to twist and writhe. A timber creaked. Then, for a second or two, all the timber-work groaned and swayed. Bits of chalk fell here and there as the earth undulated. A few seconds later came a dull boom, muffled and distant.

As the timbers settled into place with a final shiver, Bill's cage fell to the floor, bounced, rolled a few feet, and lay still. Sergeant Campbell and one of the men sprang to pick it up. Just then, a current of cool, fresh air, smelling of the night, rushed in and filled the place. Without a preliminary flicker the candles went out. A wick or two glowed red in the darkness. A soldier relighted one instantly. By its light the sergeant stooped for the cage. At that moment Bill fluttered from its open door, and eluding the sergeant's fumbling fingers, flitted across the chamber and up the shaft.

Campbell, with an expression of annoyance, sat down. The men were relighting the candles.

'Do ye be watchin' the candles, boys,' said Campbell. 'Bill's deserted, an' ye 'll hae to take warnin' o' bad air fra' the candles for the rest o' the night. I hae no doot the air is guid enough, but 't will be no harm to watch if the candles burn poorly. I hae no need to tell ye. Ye all ken the canaries are put in the mine to gie ye warnin'