out their own salvation.  Ere you read this I shall have passed on.  The Minions of Midas are all-powerful.  The police are impotent.  I have learned from them that other millionnaires have been likewise mulcted or persecuted—­how many is not known, for when one yields to the M. of M., his mouth is thenceforth sealed.  Those who have not yielded are even now reaping their scarlet harvest.  The grim game is being played out.  The Federal Government can do nothing.  I also understand that similar branch organizations have made their appearance in Europe.  Society is shaken to its foundations.  Principalities and powers are as brands ripe for the burning.  Instead of the masses against the classes, it is a class against the classes.  We, the guardians of human progress, are being singled out and struck down.  Law and order have failed.

The officials have begged me to keep this secret.  I have done so, but can do so no longer.  It has become a question of public import, fraught with the direst consequences, and I shall do my duty before I leave this world by informing it of its peril.  Do you, John, as my last request, make this public.  Do not be frightened.  The fate of humanity rests in your hand.  Let the press strike off millions of copies; let the electric currents sweep it round the world; wherever men meet and speak, let them speak of it in fear and trembling.  And then, when thoroughly aroused, let society arise in its might and cast out this abomination.

Yours, in long farewell,
Wade Atsheler.

THE SHADOW AND THE FLASH

When I look back, I realize what a peculiar friendship it was.  First, there was Lloyd Inwood, tall, slender, and finely knit, nervous and dark.  And then Paul Tichlorne, tall, slender, and finely knit, nervous and blond.  Each was the replica of the other in everything except color.  Lloyd’s eyes were black; Paul’s were blue.  Under stress of excitement, the blood coursed olive in the face of Lloyd, crimson in the face of Paul.  But outside this matter of coloring they were as like as two peas.  Both were high-strung, prone to excessive tension and endurance, and they lived at concert pitch.

But there was a trio involved in this remarkable friendship, and the third was short, and fat, and chunky, and lazy, and, loath to say, it was I. Paul and Lloyd seemed born to rivalry with each other, and I to be peacemaker between them.  We grew up together, the three of us, and full often have I received the angry blows each intended for the other.  They were always competing, striving to outdo each other, and when entered upon some such struggle there was no limit either to their endeavors or passions.