lessened their circle, the avenues of escape became more narrow. The yawning arms of the stockade stretched just beyond.

"Will I win, jungle gods?" a little gray man at the keddah wing was whispering to the forests. "Will I save you, great one that I knew in babyhood? Will you go down into 10 chains before the night is done? Ai! I hear the thunder of your feet! The moment is almost here. And nowyour last chance, Muztagh!"

"Close down, close down!" Ahmad Din was shouting to his beaters. "The thing is done in another moment. Hasten, pigs of the hills! Raise your voice! Now! Aihai!"

The herd was at the very wings of 20 the stockade. They had halted an instant, milling, and the beaters increased their shouts. Only one of all the herd seemed to know the danger Muztagh himself, and he had dropped from the front rank to the very rear. He stood with uplifted trunk, facing the approaching rows of beaters. And there seemed to be no break in the whole line.

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The herd started to move on, into the wings of captivity; and they did not heed his warning squeals to turn. The circle of fire drew nearer. Then his trunk seemed to droop, and he turned, too. He could not break the line. He turned, too, toward the mouth of the keddah.

But even as he turned, a brown figure darted toward him from the end 40 of the wing. A voice known long ago was calling to him-a voice that penetrated high and clear above the babble of the beaters. "Muztagh!" it was crying, "Muztagh!"

But it was not the words that turned Muztagh. An elephant cannot understand words, except a few elemental sounds such as a horse or dog can learn. Rather it was the smell

of the man, remembered from long It ago, and the sound of his voice, never quite forgotten. For an elephant never forgets.

"Muztagh! Muztagh!"

The elephant knew him now. He remembered his one friend among all the human beings that he knew in his calfhood; the one mortal from whom he had received love and given love in exchange.

"More firebrands!" yelled the men who held that corner of the wing "Firebrands! Where is Langur Dass?" But instead of firebrands that would have frightened beast and aided men, Langur Dass stepped out from behind a tree and beat at the heads of the right-wing guards with a bamboo cane that whistled and whacked and scattered them into panic-yelling all the while "Muztagh! O my Muztagh! Here is an opening! Muztagh, come!"

And Muztagh did come-trumpeting-crashing like an avalanche, with Langur Dass hard after him, afraid, now that he had done the trick. And hot on the trail of Langur Dass ran Ahmad Din, with his knife drawn, not meaning to let that prize be lost to him at less than the cost of the trickster's life.

But it was not written that the knife should ever enter the flesh of Langur Dass. The elephant never forgets, and Muztagh was monarch of his breed. He turned back two paces, and struck with his trunk. Ahmad Din was knocked aside as the wind whips straw.

For an instant elephant and man stood front to front. To the left of them the gates of the stockade dropped shut behind the herd. The elephant stood with trunk slightly lifted, for the moment motionless. The long-haired man who had saved him stood lifting upstretched arms.

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It was such a scene as one might remember in an old legend, wherein beasts and men were brothers, or such as sometimes might steal, like something remembered from another age, into a man's dreams. Nowhere but in India, where men have a little knowledge of the mystery of the elephant, could it have taken place at all. For Langur Dass was speaking to my lord the elephant:

"Take me with thee, Muztagh! Monarch of the hills! Thou and I are not of the world of men, but of the jungle and the rain, the silence, and the cold touch of rivers. We are brothers, Muztagh. O beloved, wilt thou leave me here to die!"

The elephant slowly turned his 20 head and looked scornfully at the group of beaters bearing down on

Langur Dass, murder shining no less from their knives than from their lighted eyes.

"Take me," the old man pleaded; "thy herd is gone."

The elephant seemed to know what he was asking. he was asking. He had lifted him to his great shoulders many times, in the last days of his captivity. And 30 besides, his old love for Langur Dass had never been forgotten. It all returned, full and strong as ever. For an elephant never can forget.

It was not one of the man-herd that stood pleading before him. It was one of his own jungle people, just as, deep in his heart, he had always known. So with one motion light as air, he swung him gently to his shoulder.

The jungle, vast and mysterious and still, closed its gates behind them.

40

Pitcher, confidential clerk in the office of Harvey Maxwell, broker, allowed a look of mild interest and surprise to visit his usually expressionless countenance when his employer briskly entered at half past nine in company with his young lady stenographer. With a snappy "Good morning, Pitcher," Maxwell dashed at his 10 desk as though he were intending to leap over it, and then plunged into the great heap of letters and telegrams waiting there for him.

The young lady had been Maxwell's stenographer for a year. She was beautiful in a way that was decidedly unstenographic. She forewent the pomp of the alluring pompadour. She wore no chains, bracelets, or lockets. 20 She had not the air of being about to accept an invitation to luncheon. Her dress was gray and plain, but it fitted her figure with fidelity and discretion. In her neat black turban hat was the gold-green wing of a macaw. On this morning she was softly and shyly radiant. Her eyes were dreamily bright, her cheeks genuine peachblow, her expression a 30 happy one, tinged with reminiscence.

"Well-what is it?

Anything?” asked Maxwell sharply. His opened mail lay like a bank of stage snow on his crowded desk. His keen gray eye, impersonal and brusque, flashed upon her half impatiently.

"Nothing," answered the stenog- 50 rapher, moving away with a little smile.

"Mr. Pitcher," she said to the confidential clerk, "did Mr. Maxwell say anything yesterday about engaging another stenographer?"

"He did," answered Pitcher. "He told me to get another one. I notified the agency yesterday afternoon to send over a few samples this morning. 60 It's 9:45 o'clock, and not a single picture hat or piece of pineapple chewing gum has showed up yet.'

"I will do the work as usual, then," said the young lady, “until someone comes to fill the place." And she went to her desk at once and hung the black turban hat with the goldgreen macaw wing in its accustomed place.

He who has been denied the spectacle of a busy Manhattan broker during a rush of business is handicapped for the profession of anthropology. The poet sings of the "crowded hour of glorious life." The broker's hour is not only crowded, but the minutes and seconds are hanging to all the straps and packing both front and rear platforms.

And this day was Harvey Maxwell's busy day. The ticker began to reel out jerkily its fitful coils of tape, the desk telephone had a chronic attack of buzzing. Men began to throng into the office and call at him over the

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railing, jovially, sharply, viciously, excitedly. Messenger boys ran in and out with messages and telegrams. The clerks in the office jumped about like sailors during a storm. Even Pitcher's face relaxed into something resembling animation.

On the Exchange there were hurricanes and landslides and snowstorms 10 and glaciers and volcanoes, and those elemental disturbances were reproduced in miniature in the broker's offices. Maxwell shoved his chair against the wall and transacted business after the manner of a toe dancer. He jumped from ticker to phone, from desk to door, with the trained agility of a harlequin.

In the midst of this growing and 20 important stress the broker became aware of a high-rolled fringe of golden hair under a nodding canopy of velvet and ostrich tips, an imitation sealskin sack, and a string of beads as large as hickory nuts, ending near the floor with a silver heart. There was a selfpossessed young lady connected with these accessories; and Pitcher was there to construe her.

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"Lady from the Stenographer's Agency to see about the position,' said Pitcher.

Maxwell turned half around, with his hands full of papers and ticker tape.

"What position?" he asked, with a frown.

"Position of stenographer," said Pitcher. "You told me yesterday 40 to call them up and have one sent over this morning."

"You are losing your mind, Pitcher," said Maxwell. "Why should I have given you any such instructions? Miss Leslie has given perfect satisfaction during the year she has been here. The place is hers as long as she chooses to retain it. place open here, madam.

There's no Counter

The rush and pace of business grew fiercer and faster. On the floor they were pounding half a dozen stocks in which Maxwell's customers were heavy investors. Orders to buy and sell were coming and going as swift as the flight of swallows. Some of his own holdings were imperiled, and the man was working like some high-geared, delicate, strong machine 70 -strung to full tension, going at full speed, accurate, never hesitating, with the proper word and decision and act ready and prompt as clockwork. Stocks and bonds, loans and mortgages, margins and securities-here was a world of finance, and there was no room in it for the human world or the world of Nature.

When the luncheon hour drew near 80 there came a slight lull in the uproar.

Maxwell stood by his desk with his hands full of telegrams and memoranda, with a fountain pen over his right ear and his hair hanging in disorderly strings over his forehead. His window was open, for the beloved janitress Spring had turned on a little warmth through the waking registers of the earth.

And through the window came a wandering-perhaps a lost-odor-a delicate, sweet odor of lilac that fixed the broker for a moment immovable. For this odor belonged to Miss Leslie; it was her own, and hers only.

The odor brought her vividly, almost tangibly, before him. The world

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He dashed into the inner office with the haste of a short trying to 10 cover. He charged upon the desk of the stenographer.

She looked at him with a smile. A soft pink crept over her cheek, and her eyes were kind and frank. MaxIwell leaned one elbow on her desk. He still clutched fluttering papers with both hands, and the pen was above his ear.

"Miss Leslie," he began hurriedly, 20 "I have but a moment to spare. I want to say something in that moment. Will you be my wife? I haven't had time to make love to you in the ordinary way, but I really do love you. Talk quick, please those fellows are clubbing the stuffing out of Union Pacific."

"Oh, what are you talking about?" exclaimed the young lady. She rose to her feet and gazed upon him, 30 round-eyed.

"Don't you understand?" said Maxwell, restively. "I want you to marry me. I love you, Miss Leslie. I wanted to tell you, and I snatched a minute when things had slackened up a bit. They're calling me for the phone now. Tell 'em to wait a minute, Pitcher. Won't you, Miss Leslie?"

The stenographer acted very queer- 40 ly. At first she seemed overcome with amazement; then tears flowed from her wondering eyes; and then she smiled sunnily through them, and one of her arms slid tenderly about the broker's neck.

"I know now," she said, softly. "It's this old business that has driven everything else out of your head for the time. I was frightened at first. 50 Don't you remember, Harvey? We were married last evening at eight o'clock in the Little Church Around the Corner."

EXPLANATORY NOTES

1. William Sydney Porter, better known under his pen-name of O. Henry, is probably the most famous of recent writers of the short story in America. His stories first appeared in magazines and newspapers, and have been collected in twelve volumes. Their interest is due to the brevity with which he achieves his effects, their mixture of the realism and the romance of ordinary American life, their humor and pathos, and the unfailing sympathy which they extend to all sorts of people. O. Henry writes as men talk; there is nothing "bookish" or literary about his work, despite the fact that at one period he studied the unabridged dictionary so faithfully that he knew much of it by heart.

2. This story, from The Four Million, illustrates the method used by a true master. There are no unnecessary details. Every sentence adds to the swift movement of the plot and

to the surprising conclusion. The characters are clearly drawn. The broker's office is as real as though you were actually looking at what was going on. The language is adapted to the situation; it belongs to a story about a busy broker, not to a story about one of King Arthur's knights or to Irving's story of the Specter Bridegroom. Thus plot, character, setting, and language all contribute to the single impression that a good short story should always give.

QUESTIONS AND TOPICS

1. In Junior High School Literature, Book Two, it was pointed out that the short story has no unnecessary characters, incidents, or details. Everything aids in swift movement toward the moment of highest interest. Give illustrations of these points drawn from this story.

2. The main divisions of the typical short story are the introduction, the main incident,