I blinked.

"Are you English?" I asked, perhaps tactlessly.

"Rather. You don't think I look like an American, do you? British to the backbone, that's what I am."

To prove it, Mr. Kelada took out of his pocket a pass­port and airily waved it under my nose.

King George has many strange subjects. Mr. Kelada was short and of a sturdy build, clean-shaven and dark-skinned, with a fleshy hooked nose and very large, lus­trous and liquid eyes. His long black hair was sleek and curly. He spoke with a fluency in which there was noth­ing English and his gestures were exuberant. I felt pretty sure that a closer inspection of that British pass­port would have betrayed the fact that Mr. Kelada was born under a bluer sky than is generally seen in En­gland.

"What will you have?" he asked me.

I looked at him doubtfully. Prohibition was in force and to all appearance the ship was bone-dry. When I am not thirsty I do not know which I dislike more, gin­ger ale or lemon squash. But Mr. Kelada flashed an oriental smile at me.

"Whisky and soda or a dry martini, you have only to say the word."

From each of his hip pockets he fished a flask and laid it on the table before me. I chose the martini, and calling the steward he ordered a tumbler of ice and a couple of glasses.

"A very good cocktail," I said.

"Well, there are plenty more where that came from, and if you've got any friends on board, you tell them you've got a pal who's got all the liquor in the world."

Mr. Kelada was chatty. He talked of New York and of San Francisco. He discussed plays, pictures, and poli­tics. He was patriotic. The Union Jack is an impressive piece of drapery, but when it is flourished by a gentle­man from Alexandria or Beirut, I cannot but feel that it loses somewhat in dignity. Mr. Kelada was familiar. I do not wish to put on airs, but I cannot help feeling that it is seemly in a total stranger to put "mister" before my name when he addresses me. Mr. Kelada, doubtless to set me at my ease, used no such formality. I did not like Mr. Kelada. I had put aside the cards when he sat down, but now, thinking that for this first occasion our con­versation had lasted long enough, I went on with my game.

LOST ON DRESS PARADE

By o. Henry

Mr. Towers Chandler was pressing his evening suit in his hall bedroom. One iron was heating on a small gas stove; the other was being pushed vigorously back and forth to make the desirable crease that would be seen later on extending in straight lines from Mr. Chan­dler's patent leather shoes to the edge of his low-cut vest. So much of the hero's toilet may be entrusted to our confidence. The remainder may be guessed by those whom genteel poverty has driven to ignoble ex­pedient. Our next view of him shall be as he descends the steps of his lodging-house immaculately and cor­rectly clothed; calm, assured, handsome-in appearance the typical New York young clubman setting out, slightly bored, to inaugurate the pleasures of the eve­ning.

Chandler's honorarium was $18 per week. He was employed in the office of an architect. He was twenty-two years old; he considered architecture to be truly an art; and he honestly believed-though he would not have dared to admit it in New York-that the Flatiron Building was inferior in design to the great cathedral in Milan.

Out of each week's earnings Chandler set aside $1. At the end of each ten weeks with the extra capital thus accumulated he purchased one gentleman's evening from the bargain counter of stingy old Father Time.

He arrayed himself in the regalia of millionaires and presidents; he took himself to the quarter where life is brightest and showiest, and there dined with taste and luxury. With ten dollars a man may, for a few hours, play the wealthy idler to perfection. The sum is ample for a well considered meal, a bottle bearing a respec­table label, commensurate tips, a smoke, cab fare, and the ordinary etceteras.

This one delectable evening culled from each dull seventy was to Chandler a source of renascent bliss. To the society bud comes but one debut, it stands alone sweet in her memory when her hair has whitened, but to Chandler each ten weeks brought a joy as keen, as thrilling, as new as the first had been. To sit among those found of good living under palms in the swirl of concealed music, to look upon the habitués of such a paradise and to be looked upon by them-what is a girl's first dance and short-sleeved tulle compared with this?

Up Broadway Chandler moved with the vespertine dress parade. For this evening he was an exhibit as well as a gazer. For the next sixty-nine evenings he would be dining in cheviot and worsted at dubious table d'hotes, at whirlwind lunch counters, on sandwiches and beer in his hall bedroom. He was willing to do that, for he was a true son of the great city of excitement and bustle and to him one evening in the limelight made up for many dark ones.

Chandler protracted his walk until the Forties be­gan to intersect the great and glittering primrose way, for the evening was yet young, and when one is of the elite only one day in seventy, one loves to pro­tract the pleasure. Eyes bright, sinister, curious, admir­ing, provocative, alluring were bent upon him, for his garb and air proclaimed him a devote to the hour of solace and pleasure.

At a certain corner he came to a standstill, propo­sing to himself the question of turning back toward the showy and fashionable restaurant in which he usually dined on the evenings of his special luxury. Just then a girl scuttled lightly around the corner, slipped on a patch of icy snow and fell plump upon the sidewalk.

Chandler assisted her to her feet with instant and solicitous courtesy. The girl hobbled to the wall of the building, leaned against it and thanked him demurely.

"I think my ankle is strained," she said. "It twisted when I fell."

"Does it pain you much?" inquired Chandler.

"Only when I rest my weight upon it. I think I will be able to walk in a minute or two."

"If I can be of any further service," suggested the young man, "I will call a cab, or-"

"Thank, you," said the girl, softly but heartily. "I am sure you need not trouble yourself any further. It was so awkward of me. And my shoe heels are horridly commonsense; I can't blame them at all."

THE GREEK INTERPRETER

by Arthur Conan Doyle

Sherlock Holmes introduced Dr. Watson to his brother Mycroft who, as Sherlock Holmes said, pos­sessed the faculty of observation even in a larger de­gree than Sherlock Holmes himself. However Mycroft never used his extraordinary talent for detective work as he had no ambition and no energy, but some of Sherlock Holmes's most interesting cases came to him through his brother.

The case of the Greek interpreter, Mr. Melas, is one of them.

Mr. Melas was a Greek by extraction and he was a remarkable linguist. He earned his living partly as in­terpreter in the law courts, partly by acting as guide to any wealthy Orientals who visited London. Mycroft had some slight acquaintance with him which had led Mr. Melas to come to Mycroft in his perplexity. Mycroft said it was a most singular problem and he wanted Sherlock Holmes to take up the case, so he asked Dr. Watson, Sherlock Holmes and Mr. Melas to visit him in his club.

A few minutes later we were joined by a short stout man, whose olive face and coal-black hair proclaimed his southern origin though his speech was that of an educated Englishman. He shook hands – eagerly with Sherlock Holmes and his dark eyes sparkled with plea­sure when he understood that the specialist was anx­ious to hear his story.

"I am all attention," said Sherlock Holmes.

"It happens not infrequently, that I am sent for at strange hours, by foreigners who get into difficulties, or by travellers who arrive late and wish my services. I was not surprised, therefore, on Monday night, when a Mr. Latimer, a very fashionably-dressed young man, came up to my room and asked me to accompany him in a cab, which was waiting at the door. A Greek friend had come to see him upon business, he said, and, as he could speak nothing but his own tongue, the services of an interpreter were indispensable.

Mr. Latimer seated himself opposite to me and we started off through Charing Cross and up the Shaftsbury Avenue.

"For nearly two hours we drove without my having the least clue as to where we were going.

At last we came to a standstill. I was hurried from the carriage and found myself inside the house.

In the dim light I could make out that the person who had opened the door was a small, mean-looking, mid­dle-aged man with rounded shoulders. He spoke in a jerky, nervous fashion, and with some giggling laughs in between but somehow he impressed me with fear more than the other.

"What do you want with me?" I asked.

"Only to ask a few questions of a Greek gentleman who is visiting us, and to let us have the answers. But say no more than you are told to say, or"—here came the nervous giggle again—"you had better never have been born."

The younger man had left us, but he suddenly re­turned leading with him a gentleman clad in some sort of loose dressing-gown, who moved slowly towards us. As he came into the circle of dim light which enabled me to see him more clearly, I was thrilled with horror at his appearance. He was deadly pale and terribly ema­ciated. But what shocked me more than any signs of physical weakness was that his face was grotesquely criss-crossed with sticking-plaster, and that one large pad of it was fastened over his mouth.

"Have you the stale, Harold? " cried the older man, is this strange being fell rather than sat down into a chair.

"Are his hands loose? Now then, give him the pen­cil. You are to ask the question, Mr. Melas, and he will write the answers. Ask him first of all whether he is pre­pared to sign the paper."

The man's eyes flashed fire. "Never," he wrote in Greek upon the slate.

THE LIGHT THAT FAILED

By R. Kipling

……… As he entered the dark hall that led to the consulting-room a man cannoned against him. Dick saw the face as it hurried out into the street.

“That is the writer-type. He has the same modelling of the forehead as Torp(Dick’s friend). He looks very sick. Probably heard something he didn’t like.”

Even as he thought, a great fear came upon Dick, a fear that made him hold his breath as he walked into the oculist’s waiting-room, with the heavy carved furniture, the dark-green paper, and the sober-hued prints on the wall. He recognized a reproduction of one of his own sketches.

Many people were waiting their turn before him. His eye was caught by a flaming red-and-gold Christmas-carol book. Little children came to that eye-doctor, and they needed large-type amusement.

“That’s idolatrous bad Art,” he said, drawing the book towards himself. “From the anatomy of the angels, it has been made in Germany.” He opened it mechanically, and there leaped to his eyes a verse printed in red ink –

The next good joy that Mary had,