Today's Stichomancy for Richard Branson

dwarfs toiling miserably to heap up treasure for their master, Alberic has set his brother Mime--more familiarly, Mimmy--to make him a helmet. Mimmy dimly sees that there is some magic in this helmet, and tries to keep it; but Alberic wrests it from him, and shows him, to his cost, that it is the veil of the invisible whip, and that he who wears it can appear in what shape he will, or disappear from view altogether. This helmet is a very common article in our streets, where it generally takes the form of a tall hat. It makes a man invisible as a shareholder, and changes him into various shapes, such as a pious Christian, a subscriber to hospitals, a benefactor of the poor, a model husband and

But this explanation is hardly sufficient, for it does not account for the intimate alliance between sympathy and affection. We undoubtedly sympathize far more deeply with a beloved than with an indifferent person; and the sympathy of the one gives us far more relief than that of the other. Yet assuredly we can sympathize with those for whom we feel no affection.

Why suffering, when actually experienced by ourselves, excites weeping, has been discussed in a former chapter. With respect to joy, its natural and universal expression is laughter; and with all the races of man loud laughter leads to the secretion of tears more freely than does any other cause excepting distress.

Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals

any farther. Pichou had no fear of the water. He swam out to the stranger, paid the smelling salute as well as possible under the circumstances, encouraged the poor creature to come ashore, warned off the other dogs, and trotted by the wanderer's side for miles down the beach until they disappeared around the point. What reward Pichou got for this polite escort, I do not know. But I saw him do the gallant deed; and I suppose this was the origin of the well- known and much-resisted Law of Strangers' Rights in Seven Islands.

The most recalcitrant subjects with whom Pichou had to deal in all these matters were the team of Ovide Boulianne. There were five of them, and up to this time they had been the best team in the

girls.

He did not realize that it was desertion--that thought that grew and grew in his mind. In it there was nothing of faithlessness to his country. He was only trying to be true to himself, and to the things that his mother had taught him. He only knew that he was deadly sick of these sights of disease, and vice. He only knew that he wanted to get away--back to his own decent life with the decent people to whom he belonged. And he went. He went, as a child runs home when it had tripped and fallen in the mud, not dreaming of wrong-doing or punishment.

The first few hundred miles on the train were a dream. But

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