He's going to explain it all later. By the way, have you ordered the dinner?"

"No, but I was just going to."

"Well, I'm glad he called me up just as he did.”

Mrs. Dimpleton's voice was tired as she replied.

"Yes-just in time. But I'm so disappointed. I had planned such a nice dinner. It is too bad."

"Yes, it's too bad. Good-by."

"Good-by."

Dimpleton figuratively patted himself on the back all the afternoon. That was a great stroke. It was bad enough to have forgotten to mail that invitation, but just suppose, he chuckled, that dinner had been ordered and no one to eat it. How he would have caught it! Now he would go home and explain it all, and be forgiven.

At half past six, a little later than his usual home coming, he stood before his wife, who was calmly seated in the library reading a magazine.

"My dear," he said briskly, "I'm not going to do anything until I tell you something. I'm not even going to wash my hands and face and brush my hair. I have a confession to make, and so here goes.

"Do you know, I forgot entirely to mail that invitation to the Whitters. When I got to the office to-day, I found it in my clothes."

Mrs. Dimpleton laughed lightly. "Why don't you tell me something new?" she said.

"New! Did you know that I had forgotten it?"

"Of course I knew. You don't suppose that I would trust a mere man in such an important matter as a dinner, do you? Not much. I waited for three days, and knowing how prompt Mrs. Whitter is, I concluded that you had been at your old tricks. So I called her up over the telephone, and found out that I was

right-no invitation had been received. Then I had to explain, and apologize for you, and repeat it. Mrs. Whitter accepted on the spot, and what I don't understand now is, why they should have waited until the last moment and then telephoned you that they couldn't come."

Dimpleton found himself turning deathly pale.

"They didn't," he stammered. "I telephoned him and he said his wife had an engagement, and I

Mrs. Dimpleton rose and faced him.

"You miserable creature!" she exclaimed. "That was our engagement. You tried to crawl out of it. Of course he didn't know what the engagement was for. I told her not to tell him, so that I could frighten you about not mailing that invitation. Oh! Oh!"

At this moment the bell rang. Their guests had arrived. Dimpleton, in his business suit, wild-eyed and unkempt, turned to his wife in her last year's high-necked gown. Like two animals at bay, they faced each other in grim despair.

"What have we got for dinner?" he said hoarsely.

"Can't you smell it?" groaned Mrs. Dimpleton. "It's corned beef and cabbage."

NO HOPE FOR SUCH AS HE.

THE next case on the docket was a small man with a nervous aspect and a rolling eye, who clutched convulsively in his hand a large bundle of papers and muttered to himself.

"What's the case against this man?" asked the Judge.

"We have not decided, your Honor. He was found last night wandering around aimlessly in a side street, apparently in an irresponsible condition, talking in a strange tongue, intervined with some familiar phrases."

"Prisoner," said the Judge severely, "what were you say

ing?"

"I was saying," remarked the prisoner, as he looked wildly about him, "that passementerie is all right with renaissance, when it is cut bias, but what is the use of an organdie trimmed with accordion pleats? Is a straight front worth twenty-five dollars equal to a sheer fluted edged nun's veiling, and why should two dozen hemstitched handkerchiefs be made up with flounces down the side and pointed edges extending in a line to the hips? A flock of white duck skirts is all right, but I'll be hanged if I see the value in a pongee kimona with a corded back, and who would care to trim an acre of hats with only two crates of material, what

The Judge, examining the papers that the man had held, gazed at him pityingly.

"Take him away to the asylum," he said to the officer. "Don't you see that this miserable wretch has been ass enough to try to solve the mystery of his wife's personal bills for the last month?"

BORES.

THE race of bores is never extinct.

When we have arranged our affairs with satisfaction, when we have so ordered things that our pride in this personal achievement of heterogeneity is at its height, the bore steps in and tells us his story. Our control is forthwith gone-we are henceforth irresponsible.

One of the peculiar things about a bore is that he never knows himself. Presumably a camel knows that he is a camel, that is, he distinguishes himself from other creatures by certain subjective evidences. A pretty girl knows that she is a pretty girl,

and a plain girl is apt to know that she is plain, though she may not acknowledge it. And so on. But a bore is always safe in his ignorance. It is this impenetrable armor that preserves him intact. He goes his own way, sublimely indifferent to the wrecks that strew his course-deaf to the groans and curses that rise in his rear.

Nothing succeeds like the bore.

That's

Browning has intimated that constant failure is the measure of a man's success. what's the matter with the bore. He tries to be interesting, and is a constant failure. The very effort that he puts forth, in proportion as it is persistent, unflagging, makes him all the more a bore.

Bores are not divided into classes, or if they are there are only two-bores and bores. But they do not all deal with the same subjects.

The experience of a bore varies, of course, as in the case of other individuals, and it is in proportion that this experience is extensive that his sphere is enlarged.

The plain, ordinary bore has lived only in one locality. It is not his fault if his destructiveness is limited. His stories are of one type, his tales of adventure smack of one atmosphere.

When a bore travels, however, what a range is added to his effectiveness! The world is his oyster. He may be able to bore you in seven languages.

stick.

Bores all have the same characteristics-they talk and they

The introspective bore takes you aside and tells you about himself-his feelings, his sorrows, his misunderstandings—no ray of humor lights this deadly stream of psychologic monotony. It is serious-more serious than a temperance lecture or the Salvation Army.

The story-telling bore, on the contrary, is a fiend of another type. He grabs you firmly by the collar. "Have you heard?"

he begins. You have. He knows you have. But it makes no difference.

There is no known antidote for the bore. We cannot club him to death. In this respect we are behind primitive man. Our manners have not helped us.

Primitive man, when his tormentor began, "Have you heard?" could brain him promptly with a bronze axe, and no one cared.

We can, of course, politely tell him that he is a bore. But this only excites his enmity. Henceforth he will talk about you to others. Thus unconsciously you will have become a party to his crime.

Every home, every office, every hotel and theatre lobby, every point of vantage, so to speak, should be provided with a bore

escape.

And when the victim sounds an alarm the entire fire department and police force, if necessary, should step in and make the bore use it.

LOVE'S VICTORY.

FIDDLEBACK purchased his automobile before he fell in love with Miss Rosyton. Fiddleback was a small man, and having always been a bachelor, considered the auto from his own standpoint.

It was a small auto, advertised at five horse-power, and took Fiddleback around beautifully.

It seems to be the fate of slender, slight men that they should fall in love with ample ladies. Fiddleback was no exception.

Miss Rosyton was not only beautiful, but there was a great deal of her. Arrayed in a filmy white dress, she took up all the view there was. To Fiddleback, however, she was an ideal