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 Canetella was much depressed by her defeat; but, as the race had to be run a second time, she determined she would not be beaten again. Accordingly she went home and sent Quick-as-Thought a magic ring, which prevented the person who wore it, not only from running, but even from walking, and begged that he would wear it for her sake.

Early next morning the crowd assembled on the racecourse, and Canetella and Quick-as-Thought began their trial afresh. The princess ran as quickly as ever, but poor Quick-as-Thought was like an overloaded donkey, and could not go a step.

Then Hit-the-Point, who had heard all about the princess’s deception from Hare’s-ear, when he saw the danger his friend was in, seized his bow and arrow and shot the stone out of the ring Quick-as-Thought was wearing. In a moment the youth’s legs became free again, and in five bounds he had overtaken Canetella and won the race.

The king was much disgusted when he saw that he must acknowledge Moscione as his future son-in-law, and summoned the wise men of his court to ask if there was no way out of the difficulty. The council at once decided that Canetella was far too dainty a morsel for the mouth of such a travelling tinker, and advised the king to offer Moscione a present of gold, which no doubt a beggar like him would prefer to all the wives in the world.

The king was delighted at this suggestion, and calling Moscione before him, he asked him what sum of money he would take instead of his promised bride.

Moscione first consulted with his friends, and then answered: ‘I demand as much gold and precious stones as my followers can carry away.’

The king thought he was being let off very easily, and produced coffers of gold, sacks of silver, and chests of precious stones; but the more Strong-Back was loaded with the treasure the straighter he stood.

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 At last the treasury was quite exhausted, and the king had to send his courtiers to his subjects to collect all the gold and silver they possessed. But nothing was of any avail, and Strong-Back only asked for more.

When the king’s counsellors saw the unexpected result of their advice, they said it would be more than foolish to let some strolling thieves take so much treasure out of the country, and urged the king to send a troop of soldiers after them, to recover the gold and precious stones.

So the king sent a body of armed men on foot and horse, to take back the treasure Strong-Back was carrying away with him.

But Hare’s-ear, who had heard what the counsellors had advised the king, told his companions just as the dust of their pursuers was visible on the horizon.

No sooner had Blow-Blast taken in their danger than he raised such a mighty wind that all the king’s army was blown down like so many nine-pins, and as they were quite unable to get up again, Moscione and his companions proceeded on their way without further let or hindrance.

As soon as they reached his home, Moscione divided his spoil with his companions, at which they were much delighted. He, himself, stayed with his father, who was obliged at last to acknowledge that his son was not quite such a fool as he looked.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

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text: The Grey Fairy Book/The Simpleton

title: The Grey Fairy Book/The Simpleton


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1976 Amendments to the Constitution of the Philippines

The Commission on Elections, sitting EN BANC as the national board of canvassers for the October 16-17, 1976 referendum-plebiscite hereby certify:

The following questions were submitted for the resolution of the barangay voters in accordance with Presidential Decree No. 1033, dated September 22, 1976:


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 the time which is described by these; also the motions of the moon—for these are the common origin of generation to all. For it is in accordance with reason that the cycles of inferior things should follow those of the higher." Nature, then, has decreed that the birth and death of animals should have their period and limit after this manner.

Just as the birth of animals depends on the course of the sun and moon, so have they various seasons for copulation and different terms of utero-gestation, these last being longer or shorter according to circumstances. "In the human species alone," says the philosopher in the same part of his works, "is the period of utero-gestation subject to great irregularity. In other animals there is one fixed time, but in man several; for the human fœtus is expelled both in the seventh and tenth months, and at any period of pregnancy between these; moreover, when the birth takes place in the eighth month, it is possible for the infant to live." In the majority of animals there is a distinct season for bringing forth their young; this is generally found to be in the spring, when the sun returns, but in many species it is in the summer, and in some in the autumn, as is the case with the cartilaginous fishes. Hence it is that animals, as the time of labour approaches, seek their accustomed haunts, and provide a safe and comfortable shelter where they may bring forth and rear their young. Hence, too, the title "bird-winds," applied to those gales which prevail toward the beginning of spring, the word owing its origin to the fact of certain birds at that period of the year availing themselves of these winds to accomplish their migrations. In like manner stated seasons are observed by those fishes which congregate in myriads in certain places for the purpose of rearing their young. Moreover, in the spring, as soon as caterpillars fall under our notice (their ova, as may be observed by the way, like to invisible atoms, being for the most part carried by the winds, and not owing their origin, as commonly supposed, to spontaneous generation, or to be looked upon as the result of putrefaction), straightway the trees put forth their buds, soon to be devoured by these creatures; and these in their turn fall victims to birds innumerable, and are carried to the nest as food for the young brood. So constantly does this hold, that whenever strange species of caterpillars fall under


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 notice, at the same time we are sure to see some rare and foreign birds, as if the latter had chased the former from some remote corner of the earth. Now in both of these classes of creatures the time for bringing forth their young is the same. Physicians, too, when these phenomena occur, are enabled to predict the approach of sundry strange diseases. Bees bring forth in the month of May, when honey abounds; wasps in the summer, when the fruit is ripe; and this is analogous to what takes place in viviparous animals, who produce their young at the period when their milk is best adapted for their offspring. But other animals of the non-migratory classes, in the same way, at stated seasons seek a place to deposit their young as they do a store of food. And thus it results that the countryman is able to decide what are the proper seasons for ploughing, sowing, and getting in his harvest, forming his opinion chiefly from the approach of flocks of birds, and especially of the seminivora. There are, however, some animals in whom there is no fixed time for production, and this is chiefly the case with those which are called domestic, and live with the human species. These both copulate and produce their young at uncertain seasons, and the reason probably is to be sought for in the larger quantity of food they consume, and the consequent inordinate salacity. But in these, as in the human species, the process of parturition is often difficult and dangerous.

There are other animals also on whom the course of the moon has influence, and which consequently copulate and bring forth their young at certain periods of the year—rabbits, mice, and the human female may be instanced. "For the moon," observes Plutarch, "when half full, is represented as greatly efficacious in shortening the pains of labour, and this she effects by moderating and relaxing the humours—hence, I think, those surnames of Diana are derived, Locheia, i.e. the tutelar deity of childbirth, and Eilytheia, otherwise Lucina; for Diana and the moon are synonymous."

"In all other animals," says Pliny, "there are stated seasons and periods for production and utero-gestation; in man alone are they undetermined." And this is, to a great extent, true;


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 for in his case, although nature has laid down for the most part certain boundaries, yet there is sometimes a vast difference in individuals, and instances are recorded of women bringing forth viable children, some in the seventh, and others in the fourteenth month. Further, although Aristotle asserts "that the majority of eight months' children in Greece die," he still admits "that they survive in Egypt and in some other countries, where the women have easy labours;" and although he says "that children born before the seventh month can under no circumstances survive, and that the seventh month is the first in which anything like maturity exists, and that the feebleness of children born even then is such as to make it necessary to wrap them in wool," he still allows "that these are viable." tells us of a girl in his time, who, although a five months' child, had arrived at the age of twelve years. also records the case of a certain courier, "who proved to the satisfaction of all, on the public testimony of the city of Middleburgh, that he was born at the commencement of the sixth month, and that his frame was so slight and fragile that his mother found it necessary to wrap him up in cotton until such times as he was able to bear the ordinary dress of infants." Avicenna also states that a sixth months' child is very capable of surviving. In like manner it is proved, both by ancient and modern authorities, that children may live who are born after the completion of the eleventh month. "We are told," says Pliny, "by Massurius, that when his inheritance was claimed by the next heir, Lucius Papyrius the prætor gave the decision against the claimant," although, by his mother's account, Massurius was a thirteen months' child—the ground of the judgment being that the term of utero-gestation had not been as yet accurately determined. There was indeed, not so long since, a woman in our own country who carried her child more than sixteen months, during ten of which she distinctly felt the movements of the fœtus, as indeed did others, and at last brought forth a living infant. These are rare contingencies, I will allow; and therefore it is hardly fair of Spigelius to blame Ulpianus the lawyer because he regarded as legitimate no child born after the completion of the


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 tenth month. Both laws and precepts of art, we must remember, have reference to the general rules of vital processes. Besides, it is impossible to deny that many women, either for purposes of gain or from fear of punishment, have simulated pregnancy, and not hesitated to swear to the truth of their assertion:—others again have frequently been deceived, and fancied themselves pregnant, whilst the uterus has contained no product of conception. On this point Aristotle's words may be quoted: "The exact period at which conception takes place in the case of those born after the eleventh month can scarcely be ascertained. Women themselves do not know the time at which they conceive; for the uterus is often affected by flatulent disorders, and if under these circumstances conception takes place, women imagine this flatulency to mark the period of conception, because they have recognized certain symptoms which accompany actual conception."

In the case of other women in whom the fœtus has died in the third or fourth month, then putrefied, and come away in the form of fetid lochial discharges, we have known superfœtation to take place; and yet these same women have persisted that they have brought forth their children after the completion of the fourteenth month. "It happens sometimes," says Aristotle, "that an abortion takes place, and ten or twelve products of superfœtation come away. But if the (second) conception takes place soon after (the first), the woman goes to the full time with the second, and brings forth both as twins. This was said to have been the case in the fable of Iphicles and Hercules. And it is a subject which admits of proof; for it is known of a woman that she brought forth one child resembling her husband, and another like a man with whom she had had adulterous intercourse. Another woman became pregnant of twins, and conceived another by superfœtation. Her labour came on, and she brought forth the twins well formed and at their proper time, whilst the third child was at the fifth month, and so died immediately."

A certain maid-servant being gotten with child by her master, to conceal her disgrace, fled to London in the month of September; here she was delivered, and returned home with her


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 any compensation for the religious charity of the twelfth century. I do not see any compensation for that kindly feeling which, within their own little communities, bound the several classes of society together, while full scope was left for the development of natural character, wherein individuals differed as conspicuously as in costume. Now, we all wear one conventional dress, one conventional face; we have no bond of union, but pecuniary interest; we talk any thing that comes uppermost, for talking's sake, and without expecting to be believed; we have no nature, no simplicity, no picturesqueness: everything about us is as artificial and as complicated as our steam-machinery: our poetry is a caleidoscope of false imagery, expressing no real feeling, portraying no real existence. I do not see any compensation for the poetry of the twelfth century."


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 I wonder to hear you, Mr. Chainmail, talking of the religious charity of a set of lazy monks, and beggarly friars, who were much more occupied with taking than giving; of whom, those who were in earnest did nothing but make themselves, and every body about them, miserable, with fastings, and penances, and other such trash; and those who were not, did nothing but guzzle and royster, and, having no wives of their own, took very unbecoming liberties with those of honester men. And as to your poetry of the twelfth century, it is not good for much.

It has, at any rate, what ours wants, truth to nature, and simplicity of diction. The poetry, which was addressed to the people of the dark ages, pleased in proportion to the truth with which it depicted fa-


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 miliar images, and to their natural connexion with the time and place to which they were assigned. In the poetry of our enlightened times, the characteristics of all seasons, soils, and climates, may be blended together, with much benefit to the author's fame as an original genius. The cowslip of a civic poet is always in blossom, his fern is always in full feather; he gathers the celandine, the primrose, the heath-flower, the jasmine, and the chrysanthemum, all on the same day, and from the same spot; his nightingale sings all the year round, his moon is always full, his cygnet is as white as his swan, his cedar is as tremulous as his aspen, and his poplar as embowering as his beech. Thus all nature marches with the march of mind; but, among barbarians, instead of mead and wine, and the best seat by the fire, the reward of such a genius would have been,


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 to be summarily turned out of doors in the snow, to meditate on the difference between day and night, and between December and July. It is an age of liberality, indeed, when not to know an oak from a burdock is no disqualification for sylvan minstrelsy. I am for truth and simplicity.

Let him who loves them read Greek: Greek, Greek, Greek.

If he can, sir.

Very true, sir; if he can. Here is the Captain who can. But I think he must have finished his education at some very rigid college, where a quotation, or any other overt act, shewing acquaintance with classical literature, was visited with a severe penalty. For my part, I make it my boast that I was not to be so subdued. I could


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 not be abated of a single quotation by all the bumpers in which I was fined.

In this manner they glided over the face of the waters, discussing every thing and settling nothing. Mr. Mac Quedy and the Reverend Doctor Folliott had many digladiations on political economy: wherein, each in his own view, Doctor Folliott demolished Mr. Mac Quedy's science, and Mr. Mac Quedy demolished Doctor Folliott's objections.

We would print these dialogues if we thought any one would read them: but the world is not yet ripe for this haute sagesse Pantagrueline. We must therefore content. ourselves with an échantillon of one of the Reverend Doctor's perorations.

"You have given the name of a science to what is yet an imperfect inquiry: and the upshot of your so-called science is this that you increase the wealth of a nation by in-


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 creasing in it the quantity of things which are produced by labor: no matter what they are, no matter how produced, no matter how distributed. The greater the quantity of labor that has gone to the production of the quantity of things in a community, the richer is the community. That is your doctrine. Now, I say, if this be so, riches are not the object for a community to aim at. I say, the nation is best off, in relation to other nations, which has the greatest quantity of the common necessaries of life distributed among the greatest number of persons; which has the greatest number of honest hearts and stout arms united in a common interest, willing to offend no one, but ready to fight in defence of their own community, against all the rest of the world, because they have something in it worth fighting for. The moment you admit that one class of things,


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 without any reference to what they respectively cost, is better worth having than another; that a smaller commercial value, with one mode of distribution, is better than a greater commercial value, with another mode of distribution; the whole of that curious fabric of postulates and dogmas, which you call the science of political economy, and which I call politicæ œconomiæ inscientia, tumbles to pieces."

Mr. Toogood agreed with Mr. Chainmail against Mr. Mac Quedy, that the existing state of society was worse than that of the twelfth century; but he agreed with Mr. Mac Quedy against Mr. Chainmail, that it was in progress to something much better than either,—to which "something much better" Mr. Toogood and Mr. Mac Quedy attached two very different meanings.

Mr. Chainmail fought with Doctor Folliott,


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 the battle of the romantic against the classical in poetry; and Mr. Skionar contended with Mr. Mac Quedy for intuition and synthesis, against analysis and induction in philosophy.

Mr. Philpot would lie along for hours, listening to the gurgling of the water round the prow, and would occasionally edify the company with speculations on the great changes that would be effected in the world by the steam-navigation of rivers: sketching the course of a steam-boat up and down some mighty stream which civilization had either never visited, or long since deserted; the Missouri and the Columbia, the Oroonoko and the Amazon, the Nile and the Niger, the Euphrates and the Tigris, the Oxus and the Indus, the Ganges and the Hoangho; under the overcanopying forests of the new, or by the long-silent ruins of the


text:
The Constitution of the Kingdom of Norway (1995)

A. Form of government and religion
Article 1

 * The Kingdom of Norway is a free, independent, indivisible and inalienable Realm. Its form of government is a limited and hereditary monarchy.

Article 2

 * All inhabitants of the Realm shall have the right to free exercise of their religion.

 * The Evangelical-Lutheran religion shall remain the official religion of the State. The inhabitants professing it are bound to bring up their children in the same.

B. The Executive Power, the King and the Royal Family
Article 3

 * The Executive Power is vested in the King, or in the Queen if she has succeeded to the Crown pursuant to the provisions of Article 6 or Article 7 or Article 48 of this Constitution. When the Executive Power is thus vested in the Queen, she has all the rights and obligations which pursuant to this Constitution and the Law of the Land are possessed by the King.

Article 4

 * The King shall at all times profess the Evangelical-Lutheran religion, and uphold and protect the same.

Article 5

 * The King's person is sacred; he cannot be censured or accused. The responsibility rests with his Council.

Article 6

 * The order of succession is lineal, so that only a child born in lawful wedlock of the Queen or King, or of one who is herself or himself entitled to the succession may succeed, and so that the nearest line shall take precedence over the more remote and the elder in the line over the younger.

 * An unborn child shall also be included among those entitled to the succession and shall immediately take her or his proper place in the line of succession as soon as she or he is born into the world.

 * The right of succession shall not, however, belong to any person who is not born in the direct line of descent from the last reigning Queen or King or a sister or brother thereof, or is herself or himself a sister or brother thereof.

 * When a Princess or Prince entitled to succeed to the Crown of Norway is born, her or his name and time of birth shall be notified to the first Storting in session and be entered in the record of its proceedings.

 * For those born before the year 1971, Article 6 of the Constitution as it was passed on 18 November 1905 shall, however, apply. For those born before the year 1990 it shall nevertheless be the case that a male shall take precedence over a female.

Article 7

 * If there is no Princess or Prince entitled to the succession, the King may propose his successor to the Storting, which has the right to make the choice if the King's proposal is not accepted.

Article 8

 * The age of majority of the King shall be laid down by law.

 * As soon as the King has attained the age prescribed by law, he shall make a public declaration that he is of age.

Article 9

 * As soon as the King, being of age, accedes to the government, he shall take the following oath before the Storting: "I promise and swear that I will govern the Kingdom of Norway in accordance with its Constitution and Laws; so help me God, the Almighty and Omniscient."

 * If the Storting is not in session at the time, the oath shall be made in writing in the Council of State and be repeated solemnly by the King at the first subsequent Storting.

Article 10

 * (Repealed)

Article 11

 * The King shall reside in the Realm and may not, without the consent of the Storting, remain outside the Realm for more than six months at a time, otherwise he shall have forfeited, for his person, the right to the Crown.

 * The King may not accept any other crown or government without the consent of the Storting, for which two thirds of the votes are required.

Article 12

 * The King himself chooses a Council from among Norwegian citizens who are entitled to vote. This Council shall consist of a Prime Minister and at least seven other Members.

 * More than half the number of the Members of the Council of State shall profess the official religion of the State.

 * The King apportions the business among the Members of the Council of State, as he deems appropriate. Under extraordinary circumstances,besides the ordinary Members of the Council of State, the King may summon other Norwegian citizens, although no Members of the Storting, to take a seat in the Council of State.

 * Husband and wife, parent and child or two siblings may never sit at the same time in the Council of State.

Article 13

 * During his travels within the Realm, the King may delegate the administration of the Realm to the Council of State. The Council of State shall conduct the government in the King's name and on his behalf. It shall scrupulously observe the provisions of this Constitution, as well as such particular directives in conformity therewith as the King may instruct.

 * The matters of business shall be decided by voting, where in the event of the votes being equal, the Prime Minister, or in his absence the highest-ranking Member of the Council of State who is present, shall have two votes.

 * The Council of State shall make a report to the King on matters of business which it thus decides.

Article 14

 * The King may appoint State Secretaries to assist Members of the Council of State with their duties outside the Council of State. Each State Secretary shall act on behalf of the Member of the Council of State to whom he is attached to the extent determined by that Member.

Article 15

 * (Repealed)

Article 16

 * The King ordains all public church services and public worship, all meetings and assemblies dealing with religious matters, and ensures that public teachers of religion follow the norms prescribed for them.

Article 17

 * The King may issue and repeal ordinances relating to commerce, customs tariffs, all economic sectors and the police; although these must not conflict with the Constitution or with the laws passed by the Storting (as hereinafter prescribed in Articles 77, 78 and 79). They shall remain in force provisionally until the next Storting.

Article 18

 * As a general rule the King shall provide for the collection of the taxes and duties imposed by the Storting.

Article 19

 * The King shall ensure that the properties and prerogatives of the State are utilized and administered in the manner determined by the Storting and in the best interests of the general public.

Article 20

 * The King shall have the right in the Council of State to pardon criminals after sentence has been passed. The criminal shall have the choice of accepting the King's pardon or submitting to the penalty imposed.

 * In proceedings which the Odelsting causes to be brought before the Court of Impeachment, no pardon other than deliverance from the death penalty may be granted.

Article 21

 * The King shall choose and appoint, after consultation with his Council of State, all senior civil, ecclesiastical and military officials. Before the appointment is made, such officials shall swear or, if by law exempted from taking the oath, solemnly declare obedience and allegiance to the Constitution and the King, although senior officials who are not Norwegian nationals may by law be exempted from this duty. The Royal Princes must not hold senior civil offices.

Article 22

 * The Prime Minister and the other Members of the Council of State, together with the State Secretaries, may be dismissed by the King without any prior court judgment, after he has heard the opinion of the Council of State on the subject. The same applies to senior officials employed in government offices or in the diplomatic or consular service, to the highest-ranking civil and ecclesiastical officials, commanders of regiments and other military formations, commandants of forts and officers commanding warships. Whether pensions should be granted to senior officials thus dismissed shall be determined by the next Storting. In the interval they shall receive two thirds of their previous pay.

 * Other senior officials may only be suspended by the King, and must then without delay be charged before the Courts, but they may not, except by court judgment, be dismissed nor, against their will, transferred.

 * All senior officials may, without a prior court judgment, be discharged from office upon attaining the statutory age limit.

Article 23

 * The King may bestow orders upon whomever he pleases, as a reward for distinguished services, and such orders must be publicly announced, but no rank or title other than that attached to any office. The order exempts no one from the common duties and burdens of citizens, nor does it carry with it any preferential admission to senior official posts in the State. Senior officials honourably discharged from office retain the title and rank of their office. This does not apply, however, to Members of the Council of State or the State Secretaries.

 * No personal, or mixed, hereditary privileges may henceforth be granted to anyone.

Article 24

 * The King chooses and dismisses, at his own discretion, his Royal Household and Court Officials.

Article 25

 * The King is Commander-in-Chief of the land and naval forces of the Realm. These forces may not be increased or reduced without the consent of the Storting. They may not be transferred to the service of foreign powers, nor may the military forces of any foreign power, except auxiliary forces assisting against hostile attack, be brought into the Realm without the consent of the Storting.

 * The territorial army and the other troops which cannot be classed as troops of the line must never, without the consent of the Storting, be employed outside the borders of the Realm.

Article 26

 * The King has the right to call up troops, to engage in hostilities in defence of the Realm and to make peace, to conclude and denounce conventions, to send and to receive diplomatic envoys.

 * Treaties on matters of special importance, and, in all cases, treaties whose implementation, according to the Constitution, necessitates a new law or a decision by the Storting, are not binding until the Storting has given its consent thereto.

Article 27

 * All Members of the Council of State shall, unless lawfully absent, attend the Council of State and no decision may be adopted there unless more than half the number of members are present.

 * A Member of the Council of State who does not profess the official religion of the State shall not take part in proceedings on matters which concern the State Church.

Article 28

 * Proposals regarding appointments to senior official posts and other matters of importance shall be presented in the Council of State by the Member under whose department they come, and such matters shall be dealt with by him in accordance with the decision adopted in the Council of State. However, matters strictly relating to military command may, to the extent determined by the King, be excepted from proceedings in the Council of State.

Article 29

 * If a Member of the Council of State is lawfully prevented from attending the meeting and from presenting the matters coming under his department, these may be presented by another member temporarily appointed by the King for the purpose.

 * If so many Members are lawfully prevented from attending that not more than half of the stipulated number are present, the requisite number of other men or women shall be temporarily appointed to take a seat in the Council of State.

Article 30

 * All the proceedings of the Council of State shall be entered in its records. Diplomatic matters which the Council of State decides to keep secret shall be entered in a special record. The same applies to military command matters which the Council of State decides to keep secret.

 * Everyone who has a seat in the Council of State has the duty frankly to express his opinion, to which the King is bound to listen. But it rests with the King to make a decision according to his own judgment.

 * If any Member of the Council of State is of the opinion that the King's decision conflicts with the form of government or the laws of the Realm, or is clearly prejudicial to the Realm, it is his duty to make strong remonstrances against it, as well as to have his opinion entered in the records. A member who has not thus protested is deemed to have been in agreement with the King, and shall be answerable in such manner as may be subsequently decided, and may be impeached by the Odelsting before the Court of Impeachment.

Article 31

 * All decisions drawn up by the King shall, in order to become valid, be countersigned. The decisions relating to military command are countersigned by the person who has presented the matter, while other decisions are countersigned by the Prime Minister or, if he has not been present, by the highest-ranking Member of the Council of State present.

Article 32

 * The decisions adopted by the Government during the King's absence shall be drawn up in the King's name and be signed by the Council of State.

Article 33

 * (Repealed)

Article 34

 * The King shall make provisions concerning titles for those who are entitled to succeed to the Crown.

Article 35

 * As soon as the heir to the Throne has completed her or his eighteenth year, she or he is entitled to take a seat in the Council of State, although without a vote or responsibility.

Article 36

 * A Princess or Prince entitled to succeed to the Crown of Norway may not marry without the consent of the King. Nor may she or he accept any other crown or government without the consent of the King and the Storting; for the consent of the Storting two thirds of the votes are required.

 * If she or he acts contrary to this rule, they and their descendants forfeit their right to the Throne of Norway.

Article 37

 * The Royal Princes and Princesses shall not personally be answerable to anyone other than the King, or whomever he decrees to sit in judgment on them.

Article 38

 * (Repealed)

Article 39

 * If the King dies and the heir to the Throne is still under age, the Council of State shall immediately summon the Storting.

Article 40

 * Until the Storting has assembled and made provisions for the government during the minority of the King, the Council of State shall be responsible for the administration of the Realm in accordance with the Constitution.

Article 41

 * If the King is absent from the Realm unless commanding in the field, or if he is so ill that he cannot attend to the government, the person next entitled to succeed to the Throne shall, provided that he has attained the age stipulated for the King's majority, conduct the government as the temporary executor of the Royal Powers. If this is not the case, the Council of State will conduct the administration of the Realm.

Article 42

 * (Repealed)

Article 43

 * The choice of trustees to conduct the government on behalf of the King during his minority shall be undertaken by the Storting.

Article 44

 * The Princess or Prince who, in the cases mentioned in Article 41, conducts the government shall make the following oath in writing before the Storting: "I promise and swear that I will conduct the government in accordance with the Constitution and the Laws, so help me God, the Almighty and Omniscient".

 * If the Storting is not in session at the time, the oath shall be made in the Council of State and later be presented to the next Storting.

 * The Princess or Prince who has once made the oath shall not repeat it later.

Article 45

 * As soon as their conduct of the government ceases, the trustees shall submit to the King and the Storting an account of the same.

Article 46

 * If the persons concerned fail to summon the Storting immediately in accordance with Article 39, it becomes the unconditional duty of the Supreme Court, as soon as four weeks have elapsed, to arrange for the Storting to be summoned.

Article 47

 * The supervision of the education of the King during his minority should, if both his parents are dead and neither of them has left any written directions thereon, be determined by the Storting.

Article 48

 * If the Royal Line has died out, and no successor to the Throne has been designated, then a new Queen or King shall be chosen by the Storting. Meanwhile, the Executive Power shall be exercised in accordance with Article 40.

C. Rights of citizens and the Legislative Power
Article 49

 * The people exercises the Legislative Power through the Storting, which consists of two departments, the Lagting and the Odelsting.

Article 50

 * Those entitled to vote are Norwegian citizens, men and women, who, at the latest in the year when the election is held, have completed their 18th year.

 * The extent, however, to which Norwegian citizens, who on Election Day are resident outside the Realm but who satisfy the aforementioned conditions, are entitled to vote shall be determined by law.

 * Rules may be laid down by law concerning the right to vote of persons, otherwise entitled to vote, who on Election Day are manifestly suffering from a seriously weakened mental state or a reduced level of consciousness.

Article 51

 * The rules on the keeping of the poll list and on the registration in the poll list of persons entitled to vote shall be determined by law.

Article 52

 * (Repealed)

Article 53

 * The right to vote is lost by persons:
 * a) sentenced for criminal offences, in accordance with the relevant provisions laid down by law;
 * b) entering the service of a foreign power without the consent of the Government;
 * c) (repealed)
 * d) demonstrably guilty of having bought votes, of having sold their own vote, or of having voted at more than one polling station.
 * e) (repealed)

Article 54

 * The polls shall be held every fourth year. They shall be concluded by the end of September.

Article 55

 * The polls shall be conducted in the manner prescribed by law. Disputes regarding the right to vote shall be settled by the poll officials, whose decision may be appealed to the Storting.

Article 56

 * (Repealed)

Article 57

 * The number of representatives to be elected to the Storting shall be one hundred and sixty-five.

Article 58

 * Each county constitutes a constituency.

 * One hundred and fifty-seven of the representatives to the Storting are elected as representatives of constituencies and the remaining 8 representatives are elected so as to achieve a greater degree of proportionality.

 * Representatives of constituencies are distributed among the constituencies of the Realm as follows: 8 are elected from the county of Østfold, 15 from Oslo, 12 from the county of Akershus, 8 from the county of Hedmark, 7 from the county of Oppland, 7 from the county of Buskerud, 7 from the county of Vestfold, 6 from the county of Telemark, 4 from the county of Aust-Agder, 5 from the county of Vest-Agder, 10 from the county of Rogaland, 15 from the county of Hordaland, 5 from the county of Sogn og Fjordane, 10 from the county of Møre og Romsdal, 10 from the county of Sør-Trøndelag, 6 from the county of Nord-Trøndelag, 12 from the county of Nordland, 6 from the county of Troms, and 4 from the county of Finnmark.

Article 59

 * Each municipality constitutes a separate polling district.

 * The polls shall be held separately for each polling district. At the polls votes shall be cast directly for representatives to the Storting, together with their proxies, to represent the entire constituency.

 * The election of representatives of constituencies is based on proportional representation and the seats are distributed among the political parties in accordance with the following rules.

 * The total number of votes cast for each party within each separate constituency is divided by 1.4, 3, 5, 7 and so on until the number of votes cast is divided as many times as the number of seats that the party in question may expect to obtain. The party which in accordance with the foregoing obtains the largest quotient is allotted the first seat, while the second seat is allotted to the party with the second largest quotient, and so on until all the seats are distributed. If several parties have the same quotient, lots are drawn to decide to which party the seat shall be allotted. List alliances are not permitted.

 * The seats at large are distributed among the parties taking part in such distribution on the basis of the relation between the total number of votes cast for the individual parties in the entire Realm in order to achieve the highest possible degree of proportionality among the parties. The total number of seats in the Storting to be held by each party is determined by applying the rules concerning the distribution of constituency seats correspondingly to the entire Realm and to the parties taking part in the distribution of the seats at large. The parties are then allotted so many seats at large that these, together with the constituency seats already allotted, correspond to the number of seats in the Storting to which the party in question is entitled in accordance with the foregoing. If according to these rules two or more parties are equally entitled to a seat, preference shall be given to the party receiving the greatest number of votes or, in the event of a tie, the one which is chosen by drawing lots. If a party has already through the distribution of constituency seats obtained a greater number of seats than it is entitled to in accordance with the foregoing, a new distribution of the seats at large shall be carried out exclusively among the other parties, in such a way that no account is taken of the number of votes cast for and constituency seats obtained by the said party.

 * No party may be allotted a seat at large unless it has received at least 4 per cent of the total number of votes cast in the entire Realm.

 * The seats at large obtained by a party are distributed among that party's lists of candidates for constituency elections so that the first seat is allotted to the list left with the largest quotient after the constituency's seats are distributed, the second seat to the list with the second largest quotient, and so on until all the party's seats at large have been distributed.

Article 60

 * Whether and in what manner those entitled to vote may deliver their ballot papers, without personal attendance at the polls, shall be determined by law.

Article 61

 * No one is eligible as a representative to the Storting unless he has resided for 10 years in the Realm, as well as being entitled to vote.

Article 62

 * Officials who are employed in government departments, except however the State Secretaries, or officials and pensioners of the Court, may not be elected as representatives to the Storting. The same applies to officials employed in the diplomatic or consular services.

 * Members of the Council of State may not attend meetings of the Storting as representatives while holding a seat in the Council of State. Nor may the State Secretaries attend as representatives while holding their appointments.

Article 63

 * It is the duty of anyone who is elected as a representative to accept such election, unless:
 * a) He is elected outside the constituency in which he is entitled to vote.
 * b) He has as a representative attended all the sessions of the Storting following the previous election.
 * c) He has completed his sixtieth year at the latest in the year when the General Election is held.
 * d) He is a member of a political party and he is elected on a list of candidates which has not been issued by that party.

 * If anyone is elected as a representative without being bound to accept such election, he must, within the time and in the manner prescribed by law, make a declaration stating whether or not he accepts election.

 * It shall similarly be prescribed by law by what date and in which manner anyone who is elected as representative for two or more constituencies shall state which election he will accept.

Article 64

 * The representatives elected shall be furnished with credentials, the validity of which shall be adjudged by the Storting.

Article 65

 * Every representative and proxy called to the Storting shall be entitled to receive from the Treasury such reimbursement as is prescribed by law for travelling expenses to and from the Storting, and from the Storting to his home and back again during vacations lasting at least fourteen days.

 * He shall further be entitled to remuneration, likewise prescribed by law, for attending the Storting.

Article 66

 * Representatives on their way to and from the Storting, as well as during their attendance there, shall be exempt from personal arrest, unless they are apprehended in public crimes, nor may they be called to account outside the meetings of the Storting for opinions expressed there. Every representative shall be bound to conform to the rules of procedure therein adopted.

Article 67

 * The representatives elected in the aforesaid manner shall constitute the Storting of the Kingdom of Norway.

Article 68

 * The Storting shall as a rule assemble on the first weekday in October every year in the capital of the Realm, unless the King, by reason of extraordinary circumstances, such as hostile invasion or infectious disease, designates another town in the Realm for the purpose. Such a decision must be publicly announced in good time.

Article 69

 * When the Storting is not assembled, it may be summoned by the King if he finds it necessary.

Article 70

 * (Repealed)

Article 71

 * The members of the Storting function as such for four successive years.

Article 72

 * (Repealed)

Article 73

 * The Storting nominates from among its members one fourth to constitute the Lagting, the remaining three fourths to constitute the Odelsting. This nomination shall take place at the first session of the Storting that assembles after a new General Election, whereafter the Lagting shall remain unchanged at all sessions of the Storting assembled after the same election, except insofar as any vacancy which may occur among its members has to be filled by special nomination.

 * Each Ting holds its meetings separately and nominates its own President and Secretary. Neither Ting may hold a meeting unless at least half of its Members are present. However, Bills concerning amendments to the Constitution may not be dealt with unless at least two thirds of the Members of the Storting are present.

Article 74

 * As soon as the Storting is constituted, the King, or whoever he appoints for the purpose, shall open its proceedings with a Speech, in which he shall inform it of the state of the Realm and of the issues to which he particularly desires to call the attention of the Storting. No deliberations may take place in the presence of the King.

 * When the proceedings of the Storting have been opened, the Prime Minister and the Members of the Council of State have the right to attend the Storting, as well as both departments of the Storting, and, like its Members, although without voting, to take part in any proceedings conducted in open session, while in matters discussed in closed session only insofar as permitted by the Ting concerned.

Article 75

 * It devolves upon the Storting:

 * a) to enact and repeal laws; to impose taxes, dues, customs and other public charges, which shall not, however, remain operative beyond 31 December of the succeeding year, unless they are expressly renewed by a new Storting;

 * b) to raise loans in the name of the Realm;

 * c) to supervise the monetary affairs of the Realm;

 * d) to appropriate the moneys necessary to meet government expenditure;

 * e) to decide how much shall be paid annually to the King for the Royal Household, and to determine the Royal Family's appanage which may not, however, consist of real property;

 * f) to have submitted to it the records of the Council of State, and all public reports and documents;

 * g) to have communicated to it the conventions and treaties which the King, on behalf of the State, has concluded with foreign powers;

 * h) to have the right to require anyone, the King and the Royal Family excepted, to appear before it on matters of State; the exception does not, however, apply to the Royal Princes if they hold any public office;

 * i) to review the provisional lists of salaries and pensions and to make therein such alterations as it deems necessary;

 * j) (repealed)

 * k) to appoint five auditors, who shall annually examine the State Accounts and publish extracts of the same in print, for which purpose the Accounts shall be submitted to the auditors within six months of the end of the year for which the appropriations of the Storting have been made, and to adopt provisions concerning the procedure for authorizing the accounts of government accounting officials;

 * l) to appoint a person, not a member of the Storting, in a manner prescribed by law, to supervise the public administration and all who work in its service, to assure that no injustice is done against the individual citizen;

 * m) to naturalize aliens.

Article 76

 * Every Bill shall first be proposed in the Odelsting, either by one of its own Members, or by the government through a Member of the Council of State.

 * If the Bill is passed, it is sent to the Lagting, which either approves or rejects it, and in the latter case returns it with appended comments. These are taken into consideration by the Odelsting, which either shelves the bill or again sends it to the Lagting,with or without alteration.

 * When a Bill from the Odelsting has twice been presented to the Lagting and has been returned a second time as rejected, the Storting shall meet in plenary session, and the bill is then decided by a majority of two thirds of its votes.

 * Between each such deliberation there shall be an interval of at least three days.

Article 77

 * When a Bill passed by the Odelsting has been approved by the Lagting or by the Storting in plenary session, it is sent to the King, with a request that it may receive the Royal Assent.

Article 78

 * If the King assents to the Bill, he appends his signature, whereby it becomes law.

 * If he does not assent to it, he returns it to the Odelsting with a statement that he does not for the time being find it expedient to sanction it. In that case the Bill must not again be submitted to the King by the Storting then assembled.

Article 79

 * If a Bill has been passed unaltered by two sessions of the Storting, constituted after two separate successive elections and separated from each other by at least two intervening sessions of the Storting, without a divergent Bill having been passed by any Storting in the period between the first and last adoption, and it is then submitted to the King with a petition that His Majesty shall not refuse his assent to a Bill which, after the most mature deliberation, the Storting considers to be beneficial, it shall become law even if the Royal Assent is not accorded before the Storting goes into recess.

Article 80

 * The Storting shall remain in session as long as it deems it necessary and shall terminate its proceedings when it has concluded its business.

 * In accordance with the rules of procedure adopted by the Storting, the proceedings may be resumed, but they shall terminate not later than the last Sunday in the month of September.

 * Within this time the King shall communicate his decision with regard to the Bills that have not already been decided (cf. Articles 77 to 79), by either confirming or rejecting them. All those which he does not expressly accept are deemed to have been rejected by him.

Article 81

 * All Acts (with the exception of those mentioned in Article 79) are drawn up in the name of the King, under the seal of the Realm of Norway, and in the following terms; «We, X, make it publicly known: that the decision of the Storting of the date stated has been laid before Us: (here follows the decision). In consequence whereof We have assented to and confirmed, as We hereby do assent to and confirm the same as Law under Our Hand and the Seal of the Realm.»

Article 82

 * (Repealed)

Article 83

 * The Storting may obtain the opinion of the Supreme Court on points of law.

Article 84

 * The Storting shall meet in open session, and its proceedings shall be published in print, except in those cases where a majority decides to the contrary.

Article 85

 * Any person who obeys an order, the purpose of which is to disturb the liberty and security of the Storting, is thereby guilty of treason against the Country.

D. The Judicial Power
Article 86

 * The Court of Impeachment pronounces judgment in the first and last instance in such proceedings as are brought by the Odelsting against Members of the Council of State, or of the Supreme Court or of the Storting, for criminal offences which they may have committed in their official capacity.

 * The specific rules concerning indictment by the Odelsting in accordance with this Article shall be determined by law. However, the limitation period for the institution of indictment proceedings before the Court of Impeachment may not be set at less than 15 years.

 * The permanent Members of the Lagting and the permanently appointed Members of the Supreme Court are judges of the Court of Impeachment. The provisions contained in Article 87 shall apply to the composition of the Court of Impeachment in the particular case. In the Court of Impeachment the President of the Lagting shall preside.

 * Any person sitting in the Court of Impeachment as a Member of the Lagting shall not resign from the Court if the period for which he is elected as a representative to the Storting expires before the Court of Impeachment has concluded the trial of the case. If he ceases, for any other reason, to be a Member of the Storting, he shall resign as a judge of the Court of Impeachment. The same applies if a Justice of the Supreme Court, who is a Member of the Court of Impeachment, retires as a Member of the Supreme Court.

Article 87

 * The accused and the person acting on behalf of the Odelsting in the proceedings have the right to challenge as many Members of the Lagting and of the Supreme Court as will leave remaining fourteen Members of the Lagting and seven Members of the Supreme Court as judges in the Court of Impeachment. Each party in the proceedings may challenge an equal number of the Members of the Lagting, although the accused has the preferential right to challenge one more, if the number to be challenged is not divisible by two. The same shall apply to the challenging of the Members of the Supreme Court. If there are several accused in such proceedings, they exercise the right of challenge collectively in accordance with rules prescribed by law. If the right of challenge is not exercised to the extent permitted, as many Members of the Lagting and of the Supreme Court as are in excess of fourteen and seven respectively retire following the drawing of lots.

 * When the case comes up for judgment, as many judges of the Court of Impeachment shall retire following the drawing of lots that the Court due to render judgment is left with fifteen Members, of whom at most ten are Members of the Lagting and five Justices of the Supreme Court.

 * The President of the Court of Impeachment and the President of the Supreme Court shall in no case retire following the drawing of lots.

 * If the Court of Impeachment cannot be composed of as many Members of the Lagting or of the Supreme Court as prescribed above, the case may nevertheless be tried and judgment rendered, provided that the Court numbers at least ten judges.

 * Specific provisions as to the procedure to be followed in the composition of the Court of Impeachment shall be laid down by law.

Article 88

 * The Supreme Court pronounces judgment in the final instance. Nevertheless, limitations on the right to bring a case before the Supreme Court may be prescribed by law.

 * The Supreme Court shall consist of a President and at least four other Members.

Article 89

 * (Repealed)

Article 90

 * The judgments of the Supreme Court may in no case be appealed.

Article 91

 * No one may be appointed a member of the Supreme Court before reaching 30 years of age.

E. General provisions
Article 92

 * To senior official posts in the State may be appointed only Norwegian citizens, men or women, who speak the language of the Country, and who at the same time

 * a) either were born in the Realm of parents who were then subjects of the State;

 * b) or were born in a foreign country of Norwegian parents who were not at that time subjects of another State;

 * c) or hereafter have resided for ten years in the Realm;

 * d) or have been naturalized by the Storting.

 * Others may, however, be appointed as teachers at the university and institutions of higher learning, as medical practitioners and as consuls in places abroad.

Article 93

 * In order to safeguard international peace and security or to promote the international rule of law and cooperation between nations, the Storting may, by a three-fourths majority, consent that an international organization to which Norway adheres or will adhere shall have the right, within objectively defined fields, to exercise powers which in accordance with this Constitution are normally vested in the Norwegian authorities, although not the power to alter this Constitution. For the Storting to grant such consent, at least two thirds of the Members of the Storting shall be present, as required for proceedings for amending the Constitution.

 * The provisions of this Article do not apply in cases of membership in an international organization, whose decisions only have application for Norway purely under international law.

Article 94

 * The first, or if this is not possible, the second ordinary Storting, shall make provision for the publication of a new general civil and criminal code. However the currently applicable laws of the State shall remain in force, provided they do not conflict with this Constitution or with such provisional ordinances as may be issued in the meantime.

 * The existing permanent taxes shall likewise remain operative until the next Storting.

Article 95

 * No dispensations, protection from civil arrest, moratoriums or redresses may be granted after the new general code has entered into force.

Article 96

 * No one may be convicted except according to law, or be punished except after a court judgment. Interrogation by torture must not take place.

Article 97

 * No law must be given retroactive effect.

Article 98

 * When special fees are paid to officials of the Courts of Justice, no further payment shall be made to the Treasury in respect of the same matter.

Article 99

 * No one may be taken into custody except in the cases determined by law and in the manner prescribed by law. For unwarranted arrest, or illegal detention, the officer concerned is accountable to the person imprisoned.

 * The Government is not entitled to employ military force against citizens of the State, except in accordance with the forms prescribed by law, unless any assembly disturbs the public peace and does not immediately disperse after the Articles of the Statute Book relating to riots have been read out clearly three times by the civil authority.

Article 100

 * There shall be liberty of the Press. No person may be punished for any writing, whatever its contents, which he has caused to be printed or published, unless he wilfully and manifestly has either himself shown or incited others to disobedience to the laws, contempt of religion, morality or the constitutional powers, or resistance to their orders, or has made false and defamatory accusations against anyone. Everyone shall be free to speak his mind frankly on the administration of the State and on any other subject whatsoever.

Article 101

 * New and permanent privileges implying restrictions on the freedom of trade and industry must not in future be granted to anyone.

Article 102

 * Search of private homes shall not be made except in criminal cases.

Article 103

 * Asylum for the protection of debtors shall not be granted to such persons as hereafter become bankrupt.

Article 104

 * Land and goods may in no case be made subject to forfeiture.

Article 105

 * If the welfare of the State requires that any person shall surrender his movable or immovable property for the public use, he shall receive full compensation from the Treasury.

Article 106

 * The purchase money, as well as the revenues of the landed property constituting ecclesiastical benefices, shall be applied solely to the benefit of the clergy and to the promotion of education. The property of charitable institutions shall be applied solely to the benefit of the institutions themselves.

Article 107

 * Allodial right and the right of primogeniture shall not be abolished. The specific conditions under which these rights shall continue for the greatest benefit of the State and to the best advantage of the rural population shall be determined by the first or second subsequent Storting.

Article 108

 * No earldoms, baronies, entailed estates or fideicommissa may be created in the future.

Article 109

 * As a general rule every citizen of the State is equally bound to serve in the defence of the Country for a specific period, irrespective of birth or fortune.

 * The application of this principle, and the restrictions to which it shall be subject, shall be determined by law.

Article 110

 * It is the responsibility of the authorities of the State to create conditions enabling every person capable of work to earn a living by his work.

 * Specific provisions concerning the right of employees to co-determination at their work place shall be laid down by law.

Article 110 a

 * It is the responsibility of the authorities of the State to create conditions enabling the Sami people to preserve and develop its language, culture and way of life.

Article 110 b

 * Every person has a right to an environment that is conducive to health and to natural surroundings whose productivity and diversity are preserved. Natural resources should be made use of on the basis of comprehensive long-term considerations whereby this right will be safeguarded for future generations as well.

 * In order to safeguard their right in accordance with the foregoing paragraph, citizens are entitled to be informed of the state of the natural environment and of the effects of any encroachments on nature that are planned or commenced.

 * The State authorities shall issue further provisions for the implementation of these principles.

Article 110 c

 * It is the responsibility of the authorities of the State to respect and ensure human rights. Specific provisions for the implementation of treaties hereof shall be determined by law.

Article 111

 * The form and colours of the Norwegian Flag shall be determined by law.

Article 112

 * If experience shows that any part of this Constitution of the Kingdom of Norway ought to be amended, the proposal to this effect shall be submitted to the first, second or third Storting after a new General Election and be publicly announced in print. But it shall be left to the first, second or third Storting after the following General Election to decide whether or not the proposed amendment shall be adopted. Such amendment must never, however, contradict the principles embodied in this Constitution, but solely relate to modifications of particular provisions which do not alter the spirit of the Constitution, and such amendment requires that two thirds of the Storting agree thereto.

 * An amendment to the Constitution adopted in the manner aforesaid shall be signed by the President and the Secretary of the Storting, and shall be sent to the King for public announcement in print, as an applicable provision of the Constitution of the Kingdom of Norway.

Norges grundlov af 1814 Stjórnarskrá Noregs Kongeriget Norges Grundlov af 17de Mai 1814


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 Lady Clarinda did not doubt that the Captain had gone away designedly: she missed him more than she could have anticipated; and wished she had at least postponed her last piece of cruelty, till the completion of their homeward voyage.


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 ancient, world; through the shapeless mounds of Babylon, or the gigantic temples of Thebes.

Mr. Trillo went on with the composition of his opera, and took the opinions of the young ladies on every step in its progress; occasionally regaling the company with specimens; and wondering at the blindness of Mr. Mac Quedy, who could not, or would not, see that an opera in perfection, being the union of all the beautiful arts,—music, painting, dancing, poetry,—exhibiting female beauty in its most attractive aspects, and in its most becoming costume;—was, according to the well-known precept, Ingenuas didicisse, &c., the most efficient instrument of civilization, and ought to take precedence of all other pursuits in the minds of true philanthropists. The Reverend Doctor Folliott, on these occasions, never failed to say a word


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 or two on Mr. Trillo's side, derived from the practice of the Athenians, and from the combination, in their theatre, of all the beautiful arts, in a degree of perfection unknown to the modern world.

Leaving Lechlade, they entered the canal that connects the Thames with the Severn; ascended by many locks; passed by a tunnel three miles long, through the bowels of Sapperton Hill; agreed unanimously that the greatest pleasure derivable from visiting a cavern of any sort was that of getting out of it; descended by many locks again, through the valley of Stroud into the Severn; continued their navigation into the Ellesmere canal; moored their pinnaces in the Vale of Llangollen by the aqueduct of Pontycysyllty; and determined to pass some days in inspecting the scenery, before commencing their homeward voyage.


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 The Captain omitted no opportunity of pressing his suit on Lady Clarinda, but could never draw from her any reply but the same doctrines of worldly wisdom, delivered in a tone of badinage, mixed with a certain kindness of manner that induced him to hope she was not in earnest.

But the morning after they had anchored under the hills of the Dee,—whether the lady had reflected more seriously than usual, or was somewhat less in good humor than usual, or the Captain was more pressing than usual,—she said to him: "It must not be, Captain Fitzchrome; 'the course of true love never did run smooth:' my father must keep his borough, and I must have a town house and a country house, and an opera box, and a carriage. It is not well for either of us that we should flirt any longer: 'I must be cruel only to be kind.' Be satis-


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 fied with the assurance that you alone, of all men, have ever broken my rest. To be sure, it was only for about three nights in all; but that is too much."

The Captain had le cœur navré. He took his portfolio under his arm, made up the little valise of a pedestrian, and, without saying a word to any one, wandered off at random among the mountains.

After the lapse of a day or two, the Captain was missed, and every one marvelled what was become of him. Mr. Philpot thought he must have been exploring a river, and fallen in and got drowned in the process. Mr. Firedamp had no doubt he had been crossing a mountain bog, and had been suddenly deprived of life by the exhalations of marsh miasmata. Mr. Henbane deemed it probable that he had been tempted in some wood by the large black brilliant berries of


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 the Atropa Belladonna, or Deadly Nightshade; and lamented that he had not been by, to administer an infallible antidote. Mr. Eavesdrop hoped the particulars of his fate would be ascertained; and asked if any one present could help him to any authentic anecdotes of their departed friend. The Reverend Doctor Folliott proposed that an inquiry should be instituted as to whether the march of intellect had reached that neighbourhood, as, if so, the Captain had probably been made a subject for science. Mr. Mac Quedy said it was no such great matter, to ascertain the precise mode in which the surplus population was diminished by one. Mr. Toogood asseverated that there was no such thing as surplus population, and that the land properly managed, would maintain twenty times its present inhabitants: and hereupon they fell into a disputation.


text:
The Codes of Phoebe and Ernest

ELL, I know one thing,” Ernest said. “A fellow never has to tell lies.”

“Well, I know another thing,” Phoebe said, “A girl has to tell lies al1 the time.” The argument started early one Saturday morning. Ernest had asked casually and all by way of making conversation, “Going to the High School dance, Phoebe?” And Phoebe had answered with the preoccupied indifference of an acknowledged belle. “Don't know. Nobody has asked me yet.”

A little later, as Ernest still dawdled in his room, cleaning a gun, Phoebe's half of a telephone conversation floated up to him.

“Oh, hullo, Tug! ... Oh, the High School dance! That's awfully good ot you, Tug. I'm sorry I can't. But you see I'm going with somebody else.” ... “Oh I'd go if I were you, Tug. You'll have just exactly as good a time. Why don't you ask Florence Marsh? ... “Oh, well, of course if you don't want to.” ... Oh, I'd love to. This afternoon at four? ... All right. I'll be ready.” When Phoebe ascended the stairs, Ernest tackled her on the landing.

“See here, Phoeb'. I heard that spiel of yours on the phone. Either you lied to me or you lied to Tug.”

“I didn't lie to you. And I didn't lie to Tug. That is—not exactly. It isn't what I call a lie. Maybe it's a white lie—a fib. See here, Ern Martin, I'd like to know what right you've got to butt into to my affairs. It's none of your business and you can just cut it out.”

“But nobody had asked you to the dance. Come!”

“No—but”

“Gee, how I hate people who don't tell the truth! I wouldn't lie for anything.”

“Yes, and many a time we've nearly died of mortification with you telling the truth on the least provocation, the way you do. Ask Mother Martin if you aren't always embarrassing her most to death by telling people just what you think of things when they ask you.”

“Just the same, I don't believe anybody's got to tell lies.”

“Well, you be a girl for twenty-four hours and get through without telling a young billion of white lies and I'll see that you get a Carnegie medal,” Phoebe declared with heat. “Girls are always up against the queerest propositions. Now, take the High School dance. Of course I knew Tug would ask me—he always does. But I didn't want to go with him. I knew somebody else was going to ask me, and I did want to go with him. He hadn't said that he was—but I knew it just the same. Well, Tug asks me first. Do you think I feel any obligation to go with him under those circumstances? Certainly not. And yet I wouldn't for the world hurt Tug's feelings. What was there for me to do but to tell a white lie? If you can show me any way out of such a situation, I shall be infinitely obliged to you. And if you think, Em Martin, that ail the Maywood girls don't have to do this, you are much mistaken. Every girl in this town is up against it whenever a dance is given. And the only way out of it is to fib and fib to the wrong ones until the right one asks you.”

Ernest was not at all impressed with this harangue. “I wouldn't have expected it of you, Phoeb'!” he said.

Half an hour later, the telephone rang again. Again, Phoebe's talk drifted to Ernest's ears.

“Oh, Mr Eliot Good morning!” ... “Oh, thank you so much, Mr, Eliot. I shall be perfectly delighted to go. It's awfully good of you” ... “Yes, eight o'clock” ... “White and yellow.” ... “Oh, that's so thoughtful of you. I don't want white—it's so bridey. I should prefer a yellow flower, though I can't seem to think of anything but roses. And I'm so tired of roses.” ... “Oh, orchids would be perfectly ducky. I've never worn them before. Thank you ever and ever so much.” “And you mean to tell me you'd throw Tug down for that wind-bag of a Page Eliot,” Ernest threw out to his sister as she passed.

Phoebe stopped, her slim length framed in the doorway.

“No, I in not throwing Tug down at all. I've been to a million dances with Tug. I just happened not to want to go to this dance with him. Again, may I request that you stop discussing what doesn't concern you, Mr. Buttinski?”

“Gee, I hate girls,” was Ernest's final shot. “I'll never believe anything they tell me.”

Thinking the matter over in the few minuses before he dismissed it for more important things, Ernest grew, as he would have expressed it, “sorer and sorer.”

For Ernest did not like Page Eliot.

Page was staying with Fred Partland. They bad been chums and roommates in Paris. In fact, Page had lived most of his life abroad. He had just returned from a five years' stay. He was one of those masculine meteors who, flashing suddenly into a small community, put the entire feminine half into a flutter—always to the bewilderment of the masculine half. It was not his popularity with the other sex which irritated Ernest. It was—well, they were naturally antagonistic. There was something in Eliot's gait, something in his manner, something in the very way he wore bis clothes, which rubbed Ernest the wrong way. In conversation it was the same. It was not so much what Page said, it was his whole Gallicized point of view. Then Page had a way of seeming to belittle Ernest's achievements. Again it was not what he said. It was what he did not say. In Page's presence, Ernest felt like the human equivalent to a large, affectionate, gambolsome Newfoundland pup, remarkable for intelligence. Whenever he spent an evening in a crowd of which Page formed a member, he was conscious always of a boiling inner tumult.

And yet Page had an interesting side, too. He was not without accomplishments, though they were rather of the parlor order. He played better billiards than anybody in Maywood. At bridge he was fairly brilliant. He could drive any kind of motor. He fenced well. He was a good talker. Ernest found himself occasionally drinking down his narratives. Duelling, bull fights, pelota, jai alai, jiu jitsu—it was extraordinary what he had picked up. And once he had held Ernest spellbound for the half hour :n which he described a sporting event held in France in which a third-class American “pug” had pounded to pieces a first-class French savatier.

In the Last analysis, Ernest's most scorching criticism of Page was that he was a fusser. Ernest half suspected that he lived by women's standards rather than men's. He had an idea that Page skulked behind petticoats, that he would not come out into the open and take punishment like a man.

Ernest emerged from these thoughts to the realization that his hands were fists. This always happened when he thought of Page Eliot. He had experienced the same sensation in regard to others. Suddenly it flashed across him what it all portended.

“Gee!” he said to himself. “I've got to lick that son of a gun before he leaves Maywood.”

This resolution brought its inevitable balm. As if released from mental clutches, the whole matter slipped automatically out of his conciousness.

Phoebe, on the other hand, furiously dusting her room, was considering the situation from a viewpoint essentially feminine.

Phoebe thought Page Eliot very fascinating. He was a tall, dark youth, thin to the point of emaciation, and yet with a suggestion, not unbecoming, of masculine muscularity. His hair was a little—but only a little—too long. It lay, thick and dense, close to his head. He parted it in the middle and then brushed it straight back. When he removed his hat, the circle that its rim made lay indented on the smooth, shining brownness. Phoebe had observed the same phenomenon in the case of handsome young leading men. Page bore about him an atmosphere, faint, unanalyzable, but definite, of dissipation. In common with the rest of nubile Maywood, Phoebe found this thrilling. He smoked a cigarette with grace and abandon. He danced well. He would have been spectacular if his clothes had not been correct rather than picturesque, and if the mocking light which never left his eyes had not seemed to include Page Eliot himself among the things at which it laughed.

Conversationally, he had all the charms of frank impertinence. He exulted in the expatriation which allured even while it shocked Phoebe. He compared American girls with Parisiennes to the disadvantage of the former. In particular, he disliked the American voice. He was witty. He was articulate to a degree almost feminine. He could appreciate a hat or a gown. Moreover, in Phoebe's desk there were a list of the French phrases that he threw out casually—fait accompli, jaute det mieux, en veine—it grew daily. In argument, he often introduced the phrase à la bonne heure, and always with a faint shrug of his shoulders. Phoebe considered this the deftest of conversational feats. And when he left her he always said, “Au 'voir” instead of “Au revoir” as Phoebe would have academically remarked.

Perhaps all this would not have been enough to rouse the spirit of conquest in Phoebe. For with the clarity of vision which characterized her neat, clear, efficient mind, she knew that she did not really like Page Eliot, however much she was fascinated by him. Mentally they did not click. A great deal of raillery and laughing badinage covered the absence of a real sympathy. And yet some mysterious law of her sex impelled her to subjugate him. It seemed to her that it would establish that belledom of which it was the sign and seal.

For there was another complication—Miss Follis.

Miss Follis was a guest of the Marshes. She had been educated in a French convent. She, too, had lived much of her life abroad. In fact, she had known Page Eliot in Paris. Florence Marsh had once confided to Phoebe that Miss Follis left her native shores labeled Laura. She returned Laurette. Just as Page Eliot had enslaved feminine Maywood, so Laurette Follis had taken masculine Maywood by storm.

According to Page Eliot, she possessed a beauté troublante But Phoebe said, after her first glimpse of her: “Mother, she's the chicest girl I ever saw in rm life.”

Black and straight and moist of hair, black and long and oblique of eye, the pallor of her skin was the dead whiteness of the lily petal, the red of her lips that of the cherry. She intensified this curious coloring by the unvarying black and white of her costumes,

“I never saw such red lips, mother,” Phoebe said again and again. “Her mouth looks like a flower dropped on to her face.” Mrs. Martin's lips always tightened peculiarly on these rhapsodical occasions. And later Phoebe understood why. Mistaking Laurette's room for the genera] dressing-room at Mrs. Marsh's dance, she came upon Miss Follis in the art of transferring from a small alabaster box to lips perfect but colorless what looked like a cerise salve.

Undaunted by this artificiality, and still utterly fascinated, Phoebe did her best to make an intimate of her. But it was like scaling a high polished glass wall. It was not that Miss Follis objected to Phoebe personally.

“She's the kind of girl, mother,” Phoebe confided to her chief confidante, “that goes to sleep the moment the men leave the room and wakes up the instant they come back. Not that she's catty—I don't mean that. I've never heard her say a single spiteful thing. It's only that she's just bored to death with women, and that's all there is to it. It is something marvelous the way she just manages to keep every man in the room nailed to her side. If one of them starts to break away she pulls him back as quick. She wants to he surrounded. She isn't a twosing type at all. You never catch her tête-à-têteing in a corner. And the way she tries to use Tug against Page and Page against Tug—mother, you never saw anything like it.”

Whenever, in private, Phoebe recalled the blandishments that Laurette Follis threw in Tug's direction, she always smiled complacently. But when she thought of Laurette and Page, she frowned. Phoebe knew, as did all Maywood, that when Page Eliot was not taking her about in the Partland machine or beating her at tennis, he was doing the same things with Laurette Follis. Somehow that thought irritated her.

Phoebe was not a flirt. She was too forthright, too single-minded. Perhaps also it was that she was too pretty to need extraneous assistance. But even had she lacked her spirited comeliness she would have attracted attention anywhere just by being Phoebe. In point of fact, Phoebe did not enjoy flirting, did not approve of it. And yet, at the Marsh dance, two days before, she had coquetted openly with Page Eliot. She felt a surge of shame every time that she looked back upon it. It seemed to her that she had gone a little way over what constituted her line of girlish reserve. Somehow, it seemed to increase her half-intuitive, half-temperamental dislike of Page. And yet, following that mysterious law of her sex, she determined that he should escort her to the High School dance. All the other dances in the winter had been invitation affairs, given in houses. You went alone, or with your brother. But in this case Page would have to fly his colors. Phoebe knew that, once he had paid her the compliment of choice, she would not care a rap what he did for the rest of the season.

Ernest brought the core of their discussion to the table that night.

“Mother,” he began, “do you think there's ever any excuse for a person's telling a lie?”

Phoebe immediately took up the gauntlet with a “Father, don't you think girls just have to tell while lies sometimes, so's not to hurt people's feelings?”

“I don't know what they have to do, but I know what they do do,” Mr. Martin responded promptly, while still Mrs. Martin studied the problem.

“Why, Father Martin!” Phoebe exclaimed, veering immediately. Only Phoebe could argue on both sides of the case without weakening her original contention. “I'm ashamed of you. You know Mother Martin never told a lie in her life.”

“Oh, are you talking about your mother? That's different,” admitted Mr. Martin.

“Well, if every man is going to say his wife's different, what becomes of the argument, I'd like to know? That's the kind of talk, father, that makes suffragette of women.”

“Now don't you try to threaten me, Phoebe,” Mr. Martin rejoined, still jocular. “I should like nothing better than to see you president of the United States.”

“Phoebe Martin for president! Gussie Pugh for vice president! Wouldn't that be a knock-out!” Ernest exclaimed, in a voice full of falsetto admiration.

The sparks in the depths of Phoebe's eyes burst their surface softness, spread to a flash. “Thank you, gentlemen,” she retorted. “You couldn't force the job on me.”

Having darted into the very camp of the enemy, having in fact fought at his side, she returned unscathed to her original position. “Women do have to tell white lies sometimes, don't they mother?”

“They do, but they don't have to, do they, mother?” Ernest insisted.

Mrs. Martin, still considering the problem, looked troubled.

“The 'Ladies' Home Guide,'” I Phoebe went on, “says that if people call and you don't want to see them, it's perfectly proper to say 'Not at home.' Now, what is that but a white lie, I'd like to know?” Phoebe paused. Her mother did not speak. “Mother doesn't agree with you, Ern, because she can't,” she pointed out triumphantly.

“It isn't exactly that,” Mrs. Martin said. “I don't know just what to say, for I don't know how to put it. In a way I agree with both of you. I don't tell falsehoods outright any more than Ernie does. I can't. Ernie gets that from me. Something inside prevents me. But I don't like to hurt people's feelings any more than you do, Phoebe. And so I just keep quiet about a whole lot of things. I guess sometimes I sort of evade answering. And all my life it's troubled me. I've wondered if that wasn't one way of telling falsehoods.”

“And to think that for twenty-five years I've been living with the Baroness Munchausen and never suspected it,” Mr. Martin interpolated lightly.

“Father, I do wish you'd be serious,” Phoebe said. “I consider this a very important discussion. It's the sort of thing that might make a great deal of difference in your after life.”

Mr. Martin accepted his rebuke gracefully. He became as serious as the twinkles in his eyes would permit.

“Well, it may be all right for a woman,” Ernest broke in excitedly. A girl hasn't any more backbone than a quahaug, anyway. But with a fellow it's different. If you begin to lie, you get all balled up. I've tried it once, and I know. It's a fierce bother remembering what you said. No, sir, I don't care a darn about anybody's feelings. Anybody asks me a question, I'm going to answer it.”

“Goodness!” Phoebe returned in her most scathing accent. “Living in the house with you is going to be one grand sweet song, is it not—it is not.”

“I shall never tell anything but the truth to anybody,” Ernest reiterated obstinately.

Mr. Martin laughed suddenly. “Don't you be so sure, my son. It's all right when you're steering a straight course alone. But wait till you get mixed up in some social game a lot of women are playing. If you tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth then, why, you'll deserve to be canonized.”

“He'll probably be lynched,” Phoebe prophesied.

But “Just you wait and see” was all Ernest said.

There the matter ended, but only for that day. The next morning discussion broke out afresh between Phoebe and Ernest. It was continued at intervals for two weeks. Running out of self-made arguments, the disputants had recourse to authority. The Scriptures were consulted, dictionaries searched, history ransacked. Even verse, fiction, drama and the press contributed special incidents. One day the force of argument seemed to lean to Phoebe's side, the next, Ernest overpowered his sister with a fresh presentation of his case. Mrs. Martin, half-troubled, very much interested, followed the fortunes of this argumentative war with great seriousness. Mr. Martin, wholly amused, deftly fed the flames of controversy by injecting questions of a subtly misleading nature at the psychological moment.

It was not coincidence entirely that the controversy always raged hottest just after Ernest met Phoebe in company with Page Eliot. For after passing the two, Ernest invariably found himself walking at an accelerated pace, his clenched hands swinging and his shoulders hunched forward. Conversely, his biceps never hungered so desperately for action as when, immediately after an argumentative bout with Phoebe, he found himself forced to fraternize with Page.

The night of the High School dance, a self-constituted escort to his mother, he left the house early in order to avoid meeting bis sister's escort. Mrs Martin, Mrs. Warburton and Miss Selby were the matrons of the occasion. Ernest busied himself running innumerable errands until the dance was well under way. Returning from a talk with the caterer, he was witness to his sister's entrance. Phoebe wore a gown that, for tenuity, might have been sea foam—all white except where a coil of yellow velvet separated the warm marble of her neck from the cool fluffiness of her gown—one yellow-white orchid in her gold-shot brown hair, a mass of them fluttering at her waist. Straight, tall, very elegant, very distinguished, Page immediately drew her into a pretty dance in which they were the most notable pair.

In the first pause that the music made, Laurette Follis made an entrance even more effective—for this time the black of her costume was dazzling with embroidery of silver sequins. A great poinsettia made a jagged blood-red splash close to her bare shoulder.

Laurette's cavalier, it transpired, was Tug. Ernest's start of surprise was reflected—he saw it plainly across the room—in the sudden jerk of Phoebe's delicate eyebrows.

Ernest's morose mood of the last two weeks persisted. He danced only twice. Then he gave himself moodily up to watching the show.

The hall of the Maywood High School represented the last cry in artistic decoration. Walls tinted a cool dark green formed the background for huge framed photographs of masterpieces of Renaissance art. And the dancers surged and swayed under the plaster gaze of statues, heroic in size, of Greek and Roman gods. With the aid of palms and potted plants, the committee had established tête-à-tête places here and there about the pedestal.

Lounging sulkily in one of these, his back against the wooden block which supported a huge Minerva, Ernest became conscious of a conversation going on at the other side. It was Page Eliot and Laurette Follis. He started to leave. Then Phoebe's name suddenly leaped out of their talk. Involuntarily, he listened.

“Oh, your gown is charming, Laurette,” Page was saying. “A little chargée, perhaps. Now tell me why did you refuse to come here with me to-night?”

Miss Follis laughed. “Oh, I don't exactly know,” she said languidly; “caprice, I suppose.”

“Oh, come, I know you better than that, Laurette. See here; if I danced too often with the little Martin at the Marsh affair, it was only because you drove me to it. And then, let's be perfectly frank with each other, she roped me into it.”

“'The woman tempted me and I did eat.' You seem to enjoy your apples of Eden.”

“Oh, well, when you threw me down, what else was there to do? And then I knew she expected me to ask her. Laurette, what's the use of all this? You don't care a sou marquée for Warburton.”

“And how do you know?” Laurette caught him up. “I liked him enough to ask him to go”

The intrusion of another name brought Eliot to his senses. Mechanically, he slid out of earshot. Mechanically he stopped and watched the dancers. They fused before his eyes and ran many colors, like layers of tinted sand in a revolving bottle. Suddenly the streaks stopped whirling, resolved themselves into units that were rainbow-colored girls and men sharply defined in black and white.

“Say, Ernest, how pale you are!” Molly Tate said in passing. “You must be dizzy.“

Ernest only stared at her.

Fred Portland, who had been dancing with Phoebe, left her with a bow, humorously elaborate. Ernest walked over to his sister's side. “I've just heard a conversation that concerns you, Phoebe,” he said. “I didn't mean to listen. I got into it before I realized it. It was Page Eliot and Miss Follis. He asked her to go to this dance first. She threw him down, and that's why he asked you. He told her that he knew you expected him to do it. He explained to her that the reason why he flirted so with you at the Marsh dance was because you roped him into it.”

Ernest bit off the last word abruptly. He left his sister's side.

For the rest of the evening, Phoebe was the gayest of the gay. She chatted till she was breathless, and then her laughter took up the fight with silence. She danced with what, for Phoebe, seemed almost a temperamental fervor. A flush, wine-red, velvet-soft, fitful at first, grew permanent as the evening wore on.

Page Eliot began suddenly to ply her with compliments. Only when she answered him did her manner change. Then a certain sphinxlike look came into her eyes: it was as if a cool, dark curtain in rolled down ever their soft, smoky gray. She did not thrust or parry according to her habit with him. Once or twice she smiled enigmatically.

Ernest did not dance again. He disappeared to sanctuary the moment the music began. But the instant it stopped he reappeared, his eye finding and following Page Eliot. The gentleman seemed unusually hilarious, unusually busy. Not until the intermission, when he hurried to get some ice-cream and cake for Phoebe, did Ernest get a chance to speak with him.

“Come on outside a moment, Eliot,” he said, gripping Page's shoulder. “I've something important I want to tell you.”

In point of fact what Ernest told Page was not at all important. But it cannot he set down here.

Thereafter, Ernest disappeared from the hall. But never had Page been more in evidence. He danced, as was fitting, more often with Phoebe than with anybody else. He did not approach Laurette Follis.

The instant the last note of the final waltz sounded, Phoebe turned to him.

“Please take me home at once,” she said. “I have a dreadful headache.”

Eliot conducted her to his machine, cranked up, and deposited her at her father's door in an incredibly short time.

The speed of their progress accounted, perhaps, for the entire lack of conversation between them.

Having watched Phoebe safely indoors, Page jumped into his auto, drove back to the garage and left it. Then he strolled briskly in the direction of The Maywood Common. Halfway across the green, a black shape arose from a bench and intercepted him.

“”Better wait a while,” it said briefly. It was Ernest.

The width of the bench between them, they sat for several minuted without speaking. Overhead the moonless autumn sky sagged under a heavy weight of stars. About them, trees and bushes were as moveless as petrified things. But a feverish excitement sluiced through the streets radiating from the Common. Automobiles, head-on, seemed to boil through the air, seemed to inject conelike floods of light onto lawns and into windows. Passing, they tapered to a sigh and the pin-point red of their tail-lights. Groups walking in various directions, and singing as they went, plunged finally into darkness, distance and silence. At last there remained not a sound but the soft stir with which Eliot blew smoke rings, not a movement but the silent red arcs which his cigarette made.

“All right now, I guess,” Ernest said. Together they emerged from the Maywood Common. Together they walked to the Martin house. But they did not go in. Instead, tiptoeing through the shadows, they moved over to the stable. Ernest opened the door the width of his body. Eliot followed him in. The door closed. Ernest went about lighting the stable lanterns. There were several of these. They gave a good light. Page began rapidly to unpeel himself from his dress clothes. With an alacrity even greater, Ernest followed suit.

Ten minutes later, Ernest was swabbing Page's white, blank face with the stable sponge. When finally bis eyes opened, they were quite void of their usual mocking glint, and he stared at Ernest under faintly puckered brows.

“What did you hit me with?” he inquired stupidly.

“I crossed you with my right,” Ernest explained, “I'd been holding that punch until you got careless about guarding your jaw. Gee, but you're a whirlwind, all right!”

“I thought the rafters were coming in on me,” Page said. He relapsed into silence, closing his eyes an instant.

Ernest did nut speak. He was struggling with an emotion that he had experienced on similar occasions. No matter how you hated a fellow, you began to like him the moment you licked him. Especially when he put up so plucky a fight as Page. Ernest had won longer fights, but never before such a hard one. Page might be a fusser; but he was game.

All Ernest's sense of a sore antagonism had vanished. He felt as free and clear and happy as if somebody had given him a present. It passed vaguely through his mind that if you made out a list of the fellows you liked, the classification would have to include, somewhere and somehow, the ones with whom you had fought. And yet he was conscious of a kind of embarrassment, too. He would have liked to talk to Page, but he could not think of anything to say. He used his bleeding nose as an excuse to souse his head repeatedly in a pail of water.

Eliot arose. He began to dress.

“I guess I'll tell you something about this business,” he said suddenly. “You had a license to get sore if ever a man had. But the truth of the matter is that I've been engaged to Laurette Follis for three years, on and off. She's broken it off several times—always without reason, it seemed to me. Of course I should not have said what I did about your—what you overheard. And I apologize now. But these girls can play the very devil with a man, And Laurette—well, I guess that's all I want to say.”

“Oh, that's all right,” Ernest was painfully embarrassed.

But, curiously enough, now he could talk, and did. In fact, after they left the barn, following an inexplicable impulse, he walked a little way with his late enemy. Walked until suddenly, under the electric light at the entrance to the Marsh place, they ran into Mr. Marsh, father of Florence.

“What the—what are you two young bucks doing out at this hour of night?” he inquired genially, stopping them. Then he started. He burst into cackling laughter. “Well, I will be hanged! What have you been fighting about? Out with it, Ernest!”

Ernest, following the line of least resistance started to “out” with it.

“I heard Page say something about my”

^Automobile!” Page interpolated swiftly, with a steelike clutch at Ernest's arm. “Then Ernest got gay and came through with too much lip. I replied with my best. After the dance, we had it out.”

“Well, you two fools!” old Marsh commented. He looked at them, not an atom disturbed. There was even a suggestion of envy in his bullish, white, blue-eyed, silver-whiskered face. “Why, I haven't had a feeling like that for forty years! That's right, fight it out when you can. That's what it means to be young. I used to fight at the drop of the hat. When I begun to wonder whether it was up to me, I knew that I was growing old.”

“We-e-ell!” Mr. Martin greeted his son at breakfast the next morning. “Who hung the lamp on you?”

“Isn't it a pippin?” Ernest said lightly. “Page Eliot and I got into a discussion about automobiles last night and we settled it after the dance. That's all.”

“Oh, Ernie,” Mrs. Martin's tone was heart-broken..“I thought when you fought with Horrie Tate it would surely be the last time. Why will you keep getting into trouble? If you should get any of your teeth knocked out— I'm so proud of them. Now come right up in the bathroom with me and I'll see what I can do about that eye.”

Phoebe did not come down to breakfast. But later, when Ernest went up to his room, she arose from the telephone, presenting to him a white, wan face that had not known sleep.

“I saw you and Page go into the barn,” she said in a dull voice. “I sat up and watched for you to come home. I've just called Tug up on the phone and told him about last night from beginning to end.”

“Well, I've got one thing to say to you, Phoebe,” Ernest said listlessly. “You were right about that proposition of telling the truth. There are some times when a man's got to lie.”

Never had words so simple produced an effect so complex. Phoebe's head dropped to the telephone-table. She burst into a frenzy of weeping, the more terrifying because it was silent. “Oh, Ern,” she begged when the sobs came far enough apart to let the words out, “don't say that! Because it makes me feel I've been such a bad influence over you. Please keep on just the way you were. I see now that it's up to a woman always to tell the truth. I shall never tell another lie as long as I live—never—never—never!”

title: The Codes of Phoebe and Ernest