[Illustration:  KIDD’S COMPANIONS ENDEAVORING TO RESTORE EVAPORATED PORTIONS OF HIS ANATOMY WITH A STEAM-ATOMIZER]

X

A WARNING ACCEPTED

“It is with no desire to interrupt my friend Cassandra unnecessarily,” said Mrs. Noah, as the prophetess was about to narrate her story, “that I rise to beg her to remember that, as an ancestress of Captain Kidd, I hope she will spare a grandmother’s feelings, if anything in the story she is about to tell is improper to be placed before the young.  I have been so shocked by the stories of perfidy and baseness generally that have been published of late years, that I would interpose a protest while there is yet time if there is a line in Cassandra’s story which ought to be withheld from the public; a protest based upon my affection for posterity, and in the interests of morality everywhere.”

“You may rest easy upon that score, my dear Mrs. Noah,” said the prophetess.  “What I have to say would commend itself, I am sure, even to the ears of a British matron; and while it is as complete a demonstration of man’s perfidy as ever was, it is none the less as harmless a little tale as the Dottie Dimple books or any other more recent study of New England character.”

“Thank you for the load your words have lifted from my mind,” said Mrs. Noah, settling back in her chair, a satisfied expression upon her gentle countenance.  “I hope you will understand why I spoke, and withal why modern literature generally has been so distressful to me.  When you reflect that the world is satisfied that most of man’s criminal instincts are the result of heredity, and that Mr. Noah and I are unable to shift the responsibility for posterity to other shoulders than our own, you will understand my position.  We were about the most domestic old couple that ever lived, and when we see the long and varied assortment of crimes that are cropping out everywhere in our descendants it is painful to us to realize what a pair of unconsciously wicked old fogies we must have been.”

“We all understand that,” said Cleopatra, kindly; “and we are all prepared to acquit you of any responsibility for the advanced condition of wickedness to-day.  Man has progressed since your time, my dear grandma, and the modern improvements in the science of crime are no more attributable to you than the invention of the telephone or the oyster cocktail is attributable to your lord and master.”

“Thank you kindly,” murmured the old lady, and she resumed her knitting upon a phantom tam-o’-shanter, which she was making as a Christmas surprise for her husband.

“When Captain Kidd began his story,” said Cassandra, “he made one very bad mistake, and yet one which was prompted by that courtesy which all men instinctively adopt when addressing women.  When he entered the room he removed his hat, and therein lay his fatal error, if he wished to convince me of the truth of his story, for with his hat removed I could see the workings of his mind.  While you ladies were watching his lips or his eyes, some of you taking in the gorgeous details of his dress, all of you hanging upon his every word, I kept my eye fixed firmly upon his imagination, and I saw, what you did not, that he was drawing wholly upon that!”