stare)" or what comes," he went on. "I happen to need some champagne this evening-giving a little dinner day after

to-morrow."

Barney stared at him, and suddenly grinned. "You're not a bad sort," he remarked. "Wouldn't you like a drink now?"

"Don't mind if I do," said the other, affably, and drew up a chair, facing the woman at the stern.

Barney uncorked the second bottle in the bucket and poured first a few drops in his own glass, and then filled one near the pirate. 'Vel waved his pipe in refusal, and Barney's mute interrogation of the woman netted him nothing, so he filled his own glass.

The man called Bill had appeared and reappeared, with cases, noiseless, efficient, never once glancing at the group at the table.

The pirate held up his glass, and looked through it, either at the moon or the woman; tasted it with relish, almost with the gesture of a toast-to the moon or the woman—and spoke over his shoulder to the man called Bill (who had set his last case down at the rail, and was waiting there, staring at vacancy), "That's all, Bill." He seemed to know that Bill had finished his task, though his bare feet had made no perceptible sound. "Doesn't your man want a drink?” said Barney, easily.

"Never touches it," said the pirate. "Mind telling us a little about yourself?" inquired 'Vel. "You see, we've all been a little bored, and conversation had almost ceased when you came. Not asking you anything personal" (he gave a sharp look at the pirate, with a quizzical lift of his eyebrows), "of course, but-?"

"Sure," grinned the pirate, cheerfully, after a long look at 'Vel. Something like a wink was exchanged between them. "I'm only working out my destiny; was bored once, myself; got born in the wrong milieu, stuck in it, feeling responsible, until one day I realized I wasn't responsible to anyone, any more, except

VOL. CXLIV.-No. 860.-31

A shade of wonderment passed over 'Vel's face, and he nodded his head.

"I had no longer anything to fulfill, you understand; had done pretty well what was expected of me, didn't owe anything more to human relationships— so here I am, to-day," he added, with a certain quaint emphasis on the word.

'Vel, who had been tilting his chair backward, brought it down with a thump, and began, in a leisurely fashion, to trepan his pipe with a match, looking down into the bowl with an inquisitive air, as a rabassier, having found his quarry, scratches in the ground and waits for his master to come, saying, by his uplifted paw," On my word of honor as a dog, there's a truffle here."

"Get much fun out of piracy?" inquired Barney, as of a fellow craftsman, with the polite interest of the perfect host who finds all matters worthy of discussion. "Have some champagne."

There was a slight cough from the man called Bill. And the pirate, after tasting his second glass, pushed it negligently away, and helped himself to a cigarette.

"Awfully good cigarettes," he murmured, appreciatively.

"Like some to take along?" said Barney, affably. There was in his tone a little of the gratification of the man who hears his private blend of tobacco praised, and a little of something else, smoothly disguised. 'Vel smiled with deep amusement, as Barney fished some keys out of his pocket, and, selecting one, signaled to the man called Bill.

"In number one," he said, pleasantly, "top locker, left side, three tin boxes of a thousand each. Bring up one, will you?"

"Thanks," said the pirate, and to his perceptible nod, the weather-beaten man went below with the keys. "Awfully decent of you," he added, to Barney.

'Vel smiled to himself, as Barney started to rise.

The pirate's chair went back an inch.

"I beg your pardon," said he, very quietly, but in a tone like cold steel, and he stared Barney in the eyes, all of his cheerful bonhomie gone. His look said: "My man is not a sneak thief; and you needn't think, either, that by sending him downstairs on a courteous errand you can put anything over on me. For the moment I'm your guest; that would be a dirty trick. Just now I was a pirate, but there is a time for everything. . . and just because I have sat down to drink with you and discuss philosophy is precisely why this is a time of truce."

Barney understood him perfectly, as a practiced gambler, and relaxed into his chair again, thinking better of whatever ulterior motive he had.

The pirate flicked the ash from his cigarette, and hitched his chair forward. The rules had been preserved. 'Vel finished his trepanning, reprimed his pipe, and lighted it, with a humorous side glance at the woman.

The music that stole up from below had become a little, nervous, dissonant, restive.

"It's just a game with you, then?" inquired 'Vel, of the pirate, breaking the tension.

"Call it an art," said the other, his easy-going manner coming back. "You see He hesitated, and looked fixedly at the woman, who was looking out over the bay again, her face averted; and, as if giving up his reticence with the ash from the end of his cigarette, "Of course, gentlemen, you will never repeat what I'm going to tell you" (he spoke half boyishly, looking all the time at the woman), "but my ambition has always been to restore, where possible, and not to destroy, to contribute a little order to the universe or even a little agreeable disorder."

The man called Bill returned with a tin box, gave the bunch of keys to Barney, and went over to the rail, where he stood, immobile, with the box under his left arm.

"About the world there are certain things that are not in their proper

places," the pirate resumed; "shall we say they are simply waiting to be returned to their original niches or market stalls, or-? And those other things that have never been in their natural locales. Please understand, I do not include your champagne in either of these abstractions."

Barney made a wry face, as if to say, "It's your champagne now," and lifted his hand resignedly.

...

"And I do my humble part as carrier. You've seen hothouse flowers in a Northern greenhouse, that not only leaned to the sun, but almost pleaded to be set free and returned to the morass they'd never seen. You've observed, no doubt, a lioness born in captivity who nevertheless knew, in her eyes, at least, how her world ought to look. You've also seen," he went on, in another key, "certain inanimate things that were stolen and never got returned. If they had been, they might have become animate, the bronze horses of St. Mark's— so called-thus giving the credit to the thief. But you see what I mean? The bronze horses were returned to St. Mark's after Napoleon had stolen them; but why shouldn't they have been taken back to Constantinople, where Enrico Dandolo stole them, and thence to the Arch of Trajan, or just a little farther, to the place that they were first set up, from which they were first stolen? That would be poetic restitution.”

"Is that your procedure?" asked Barney, interestedly.

"Most of the time," said the other. "Naturally, it's more fun sometimes to take things for the fun of taking, or out of necessity. But I picked up a chap once who had got shaken out of the dice cup at Trinidad, when he needed to be in Florida, and I landed him on a key. Another time it was a little Lucarelli that had been stolen from some friends of mine in Ancona.”

"And you stole it back?" inquired 'Vel, amusedly.

"There is a temple in a village up the Payankiang River, in the province of

...

Chekiang," the pirate went on, ignoring the question, "where one god was missing from the row on the stone shelf-had been missing for forty years. The priests had turned out hundreds of prayer rolls for the return of that god. Well, I saw him one day, sitting on a buhl table in-well, let's say in the East Eighties, or the Avenue Henri Martin, it doesn't matter where. He was a bit nicked and battered, having journeyed nearly around the world, and rested uncomfortably on so many buhl tables, and behind the doors of so many antiqueshop cabinets. He had been repainted in places, but-well, he's back on the stone shelf, in his right place, and the priests of Quang-ho have time to pray for other things now. Do you see?"

"Yes," said Barney, "but I'm interested to know about your takings for the fun of taking?"

"Now you couldn't expect me to tell you much about that," the pirate grinned; "that's always impulsive, you see . . might happen any time. The other is deliberate, foreplanned, an intellectual abstraction."

The woman at the stern had abandoned her vanity chest and was occupied in drawing off her rings and putting them on again, without looking at the men. There was a flavor of mockery in her gesture.

"Once-" the pirate began, intently. There was a very slight, sepulchral cough, casual enough, but definite, from the man called Bill, and he cut short what he had begun to say, and turned to 'Vel. "Wonder if you'd mind going down," said he, "and telling Caleb to come up?"

"Certainly," said 'Vel, pleasantly. The two looked at each other for a long moment, and the pirate held out his hand, which was warmly shaken.

"Some other evening," said the pirate, and 'Vel nodded and went below.

"Got to be running along now," he said to Barney, getting up. Barney rose also, and the woman clasped her hands and stared at them. They were both

big, strong, seasoned, adequate. They stood looking at each other, and the intruder smiled.

"Thanks for the cigarettes," he said, simply, but did not extend his hand, nor did Barney.

"Anything else you'd like?" asked the latter, half ironically.

"Yes... there is," was the quiet

answer.

"Well-what?"

The pirate looked past him at the woman, who had got up, laying the vanity chest on her chair.

Barney looked from one to the other; it seemed to dawn upon him, dimly, what was happening, as the woman walked slowly down the deck, and past him, with scarcely a glance. There was an atmosphere of abandon in her movements, a definite relinquishment in the way that she drew three rings from her fingers and laid them on the rattan table. They made a clinking sound, like ice in a thin glass. They were put down gently, as things once cherished, but now irrelative, unimportant.

She faced the pirate, a tall woman, in her early thirties, ripened and firmly molded and infinitely mysterious in her self-containment, as if life had never touched her poignantly until this moment. The pirate regarded her with a somber fire in his eyes, and after a tense and pregnant pause, Barney seemed to come to some acceptance in his mind, and the pirate kindled to flame as the woman went swiftly past him, brushing his arm with hers, to the landing steps, where the man called Bill was holding his arm in readiness for her. Caleb appeared at this moment, closing the doors of the companionway behind him. He locked them and thrust the brass key into his pocket.

"Locked 'em in saloon," said Caleb, hurriedly, as if he hadn't altogether liked doing it, and went to the landing steps.

The pirate turned on his heel and followed him, without looking at Barney again. But Barney stood transfixed

NE morning some twenty years ago

ONE some thered around a

shoe-store window on Summer Street, Boston, watching a man at work. Other pedestrians, seeing the group, stopped and edged their way toward the window until they, too, could see the man behind the plate glass.

Inside the window was a buzz saw driven by an electric motor, and with this buzz saw the man was sawing up shoes. Z-i-n-g! would go the saw, and then the man would hold up for the crowd's inspection the two halves of a brand-new shoe of the make sold in the store. Z-i-n-g! And the crowd would be shown the two halves of some other maker's shoe, so that it could see the difference of the material which went into the soles and heels of the two shoes.

Hour after hour the man sawed shoes -new shoes, half-worn shoes, dilapidated old shoes. The window was heaped with shoes, sawed and unsawed.

People stopped to look and stayed to marvel at the company's daring in thus ripping their own shoes to pieces and showing them in comparison with shoes of competitors.

are

"This company's shoes must be made of good materials or they wouldn't dare do that," was the first thought. "They e-I can see that they are,' was the second. And this was followed in so many cases by a third, "I must buy a pair," that inside of a few months men were sawing up shoes in the windows of this company's stores all over the country.

For weeks these window demonstrations continued. So great were the crowds they attracted that in some cities the police had to request the man in the

window to stop sawing at intervals in order to relieve the sidewalk congestion.

The man who developed that simple idea of sawing up shoes to show people how well they were made exercised shrewd imagination about people and their buying processes. He knew that in selling shoes he faced the same fundamental selling resistance which confronts a huxter, for instance, when selling a basket of strawberries or a watermelonthe eye may be sold by the outward appearance, but the intellect demands to know what is underneath or inside. The huxter tips the basket of strawberries into his hand to show the buyer the berries on the bottom of the basket, or he plugs the watermelon to show that it is sound and ripe inside; the shoe man sawed his shoes apart from toe to heel for the same purpose. The demonstration sold shoes so successfully that it is credited with being one of the largest single factors in winning a national reputation for this make of shoe.

Probably no subject in the world has more fascination for the keen-minded business man than the study of how people are influenced to exchange their money for the commodities of life-why they will spend willingly for one class of commodities and grudgingly for another; why they will buy this and will not buy that; how they may be led into new buying channels; and what methods are most effective in stimulating the buying impulse.

Buying is a mental function, and as such it is peculiarly subject to the influence of imagination applied or supplied from without-applied to the buyer's mind in such a way as to take advantage of his mental ductility, or to the product in such a way as to cause it to react