answer came to me. I arose and hurried - hurried
as so many reasoners must, back around my circle.

I knew the answer and I bugged it in my breast as I
flew, fearing lest some one would stop me and demand

my secret.
Aurelia was still on the stoop. The moon was

higher and the ivy shadows were deeper. I sat at her
side and we watched a little cloud tilt at the drifting

moon and go asunder, quite pale and discomfited.
And then, wonder of wonders and delight of de-

lights! our hands somehow touched, and our fingers
closed together and did not part.

After half an hour Aurelia said, with that smile
of hers:

"Do you know, you haven't spoken a word since
you came back! "

"That," said I, nodding wisely, "is the Voice of
the City."

THE COMPLETE LIFE OF JOHN HOPKINS
There is a saying that no man has tasted the full

flavor of life until he has known poverty, love and
war. The justness of this reflection commends it to

the lover of condensed philosophy. The three condi-
tions embrace about all there is in life worth knowing.

A surface thinker might deem that wealth should be
added to the list. Not so. When a poor man finds a

long-bidden quarter-dollar that has slipped through
a rip into his vest lining, be sounds the pleasure of

life with a deeper plummet than any millionaire can
hope to cast.

It seems that the wise executive power that rules
life has thought best to drill man in these three con-

ditions; and none may escape all three. In rural
places the terms do not mean so much. Poverty is

less pinching; love is temperate; war shrinks to con-
tests about boundary lines and the neighbors' hens.

It is in the cities that our epigram gains in truth and
vigor; and it has remained for one John Hopkins to

crowd the experience into a rather small space of
time.

The Hopkins flat was like a thousand others.
There was a rubber plant in one window; a flea-

bitten terrier sat in the other, wondering when he
was to have his day.

John Hopkins was like a thousand others. He
worked at $20 per week in a nine-story, red-brick

building at either Insurance, Buckle's Hoisting En-
gines, Chiropody, Loans, Pulleys, Boas Renovated,

Waltz Guaranteed in Five Lessons, or Artificial
Limbs. It is not for us to wring Mr. Hopkins's avo-

cation from these outward signs that be.
Mrs. Hopkins was like a thousand others. The

auriferous tooth, the sedentary disposition, the Sun-
day afternoon wanderlust, the draught upon the

delicatessen store for home-made comforts, the
furor for department store marked-down sales, the

feeling of superiority to the lady in the third-floor
front who wore genuineostrich tips and had two

names over her bell, the mucilaginous hours during
which she remained glued to the window sill, the vigi-

lant avoidance of the instalment man, the tireless
patronage of the acoustics of the dumb-waiter shaft

- all the attributes of the Gotham flat-dweller were
hers.

One moment yet of sententiousness and the story
moves.

In the Big City large and sudden things happen.
You round a corner and thrust the rib of your um-

brella into the eye of your old friend from Kootenai
Falls. You stroll out to pluck a Sweet William in the

park - and lo! bandits attack you - you are am-
bulanced to the hospital - you marry your nurse;

are divorced - get squeezed while short on U. P. S.
and D. 0. W. N. S. - stand in the bread line - marry

an heiress, take out your laundry and pay your club
dues - seemingly all in the wink of an eye. You

travel the streets, and a finger beckons to you, a
handkerchief is dropped for you, a brick is dropped

upon you, the elevator cable or your bank breaks, a
table d'hote or your wife disagrees with you, and Fate

tosses you about like cork crumbs in wine opened by
an un-feed waiter. The City is a sprightly young-

ster, and you are red paint upon its toy, and you get
licked off.

John Hopkins sat, after a compressed dinner, in
his glove-fitting straight-front flat. He sat upon a

hornblende couch and gazed, with satiated eyes, at
Art Brought Home to the People in the shape of

"The Storm " tacked against the wall. Mrs. Hop-
kins discoursed droningly of the dinner smells from

the flat across the ball. The flea-bitten terrier gave
Hopkins a look of disgust, and showed a man-hating

tooth.
Here was neither poverty, love, nor war; but upon

such barren stems may be grafted those essentials of
a complete life.

John Hopkins sought to inject a few raisins of
conversation into the tasteless dough of existence.

"Putting a new elevator in at the office," he said,
discarding the nominative noun, "and the boss has

turned out his whiskers."
"You don't mean it! commented Mrs. Hopkins.

"Mr. Whipples," continued John, "wore his new
spring suit down to-day. I liked it fine It's a gray

with - " He stopped, suddenly stricken by a need
that made itself known to him. "I believe I'll walk

down to the corner and get a five-cent cigar,"he
concluded.

John Hopkins took his bat aid picked his way
down the musty halls and stairs of the flat-house

The evening air was mild, and the streets shrill
with the careless cries of children playing games con-

trolled by mysterious rhythms and phrases. Their
elders held the doorways and steps with leisurely pipe

and gossip. Paradoxically, the fire-escapes sup-
ported lovers in couples who made no attempt to fly

the mounting conflagration they were there to fan.
The corner cigar store aimed at by John Hopkins

was kept by a man named Freshmayer, who looked
upon the earth as a sterile promontory.

Hopkins, unknown in the store, entered and called
genially for his "bunch of spinach, car-fare grade."

This imputation deepened the pessimism of Fresh-
mayer; but be set out a brand that came perilously

near to filling the order. Hopkins bit off the roots of
his purchase, and lighted up at the swinging gas