people cheer shows that it is really Watts McHurdie's town." So when Colonel Martin Culpepper wrote the "Biography of Watts McHurdie" which was published together with McHurdie's "Complete Poetical and Philosophical Works," there was naturally much discussion, and the town was more or less divided as to what part of the book was the best. But the old settlers,--those who, during the drouth of '60, ate mince pies with pumpkins as the fruit and rabbit meat as the filling and New Orleans black-strap as the sweetening, the old settlers who knew Watts before he became famous,--they like best of all the chapters in the colonel's Biography the one entitled "At Hymen's Altar." And here is a curious thing about it: in that chapter there is really less of Watts and considerably more of Colonel Martin Culpepper than in any other chapter. But the newcomers, those who came in the prosperous days of the 70's or 80's, never could understand the partiality of the old settlers for the "Hymen's Altar" chapter. Lycurgus Mason also always took the view that the "Hymen" chapter was drivel. "Now, John, be sensible--" Lycurgus insisted one night in 1903 when the two were eating supper in Barclay's private car on a side-track in Arizona; "don't be like my wife--she always drools over that chapter, too. But you know my wife--" Lycurgus always referred to Mrs. Mason with a grand gesture as to his dog or his horse, which were especially desirable chattels. "My wife,--it's just like a woman,--she sits and reads that, and laughs and weeps, and giggles and sniffs, and I say, 'What's the matter with you, anyway?'" John Barclay pushed a button. To the porter he said, "Bring me that little red book in my satchel." The book had been published but a few weeks, and John always carried a copy around with him in those days to give to a friend. When the porter brought the book, Barclay read aloud, "Ah, truly hath the poet said, 'Marriages are made in heaven.'" But Lycurgus Mason pulled his napkin from under his chin and moved back from the table, dusting the crumbs from his obviously Sunday clothes. "There you go--that's it; 'as the poet says.' John, if you heard that 'as the poet says' as often as I do--" He could not finish the figure. But he sniffed out his disgust with "as the poet says." "It wasn't so bad when we were in the hotel, and she was busy with something else. But now--but now--" he repeated it the third time, "but now--honest, every time that woman goes to get up a paper for the Hypatia Club, she gets me in the parlour, and rehearses it to me, and the dad-binged thing is simply packed full of 'as the poet sayses.' And about that marriages being made in heaven, I tell my wife this: I say, 'Maybe so, but if they are, I know one that was made on a busy day when the angels were thinking of something else.'" And John Barclay, who knew Mrs. Mason and knew Lycurgus, knew that he would as soon think of throwing a bomb at the President as to say such a thing to her; so John asked credulously: "You did? Well, well! Say,