killed a child, mixing its blood with the ashes of the herbs. He then read from his books and gazed at the blood, where he saw mountains, valleys, clefts, and caves, and Lenin walking among them with a light step, searching for the red stone of warfare and the white stone of happiness.

Kuchuk-Adam trembled with fear lest Lenin should find these stones and become invincible. Calling for his horse, swift as the storm, and for his dagger and the belt of the mighty Ali, Kuchuk-Adam locked the door of his Black Room with five locks and fled to the mountains.

Meanwhile Lenin wandered in the mountains, through passes and caves, and at last, at the bottom of a streamlet in a narrow gorge, he saw the red stone and the white stone. But when he bent to grasp them, Kuchuk-Adam, who had made himself invisible by means of the ring, fell upon him, gripped him bodily, and threw him on the rocks. With his foot Lenin pushed Kuchuk-Adam away, and the struggle began.

Thunder rolled, mountains flung their rocks right and left trying to kill Kuchuk-Adam, bolts of lightning streamed down from heaven; but Kuchuk-Adam stood behind Lenin, so that the lightning could not touch him.

As Lenin began to weaken in the uneven fight, sweat ran down his brow. One drop fell on Kuchuk-Adam's hand, burning it through. As he waved it in pain, the ring dropped off and the wearer became visible. Then the mountains and the clouds turned their wrath upon him, beating him with rocks and burning him with lightning, and Kuchuk-Adam fell, buried under heaps of stones.

Lenin removed from the dead wizard the belt of Ali, took the red stone and the white stone, and went forth to liberate the earth. The mountains

shaded him from the sun, whose glow was tempered lest the rocks should burn his feet. When he was thirsty, the sky shed rain; when he was hungry, badgers brought him food and the djeiran (the antelope) gave him her milk. Thus he walked for five days before stopping in a narrow pass to sleep.

While Lenin slept, Kuchuk-Adam regained his senses, and, gathering a horde of shaitans, eluded the watchful mountains and set out to kill Lenin.

The mountains did not see him flying over them; the sky slept and saw him not. Only a small sparrow perceived him. Straining its little wings, it flew to Lenin faster than the wind, to warn him. It arrived ahead of KuchukAdam, warned Lenin, and fell dead.

Lenin awakened the mountains; he rubbed his dagger with Ali's belt, and the dagger became heavy, yet like fire; and when the black horde appeared above him, the mountains closed in, forming a roof, so that the shaitans could not flee as Lenin's fiery dagger struck and burned them. All the demons fell dead in that pass; and Kuchuk-Adam, turning into a worm, crawled into a crack to escape Lenin's wrath. When the sun rose, dispelling the darkness in the pass, Lenin found the small sparrow's body among the bodies of shaitans, and he buried it, kissing the ground, and saying to the mountains:

'Build a vast, magnificent mausoleum over him, for though his body was small his spirit was great, and he gave his life for the happiness of all.'

The mountains closed over the sparrow's grave; and the mausoleum, the equal of which has never been seen on earth, towered up to the clouds, telling them of the sparrow's death. Then the clouds gathered around the top of the mausoleum and wept over the great and strong spirit which had lived in a small body.

Lenin went on and on, and KuchukAdam, running ahead, put a mountain stream across his path. He poisoned the water, thinking, 'Lenin will touch it and die.' But when Lenin came, he threw his club into the stream and, seeing the club blackened with poison, summoned eagles, who carried him

across.

Seeing his failure, Kuchuk-Adam ran ahead once more, and, waiting for Lenin to lie down to rest, climbed the mountain above him and threw down a rock. But the rock descended slowly, coming to rest near Lenin's head, and turning soft as down. Lenin took it and put it under his head like a pillow.

The accursed, fiery Kuchuk-Adam groaned in his wrath, gnawed stones, and threw blasphemies to the sky; but the sky answered him with contemptuous silence. Kuchuk-Adam shed hateful tears, which burned holes in the rocks on which they fell.

Lenin left the mountains and entered the steppe; and the steppe was soft beneath his feet. Venomous snakes, lizards, and frogs crept off his path lest they pollute his gaze with their sight, and looked at him stealthily from the grass, weeping because they were the only ones he left neglected. But he heard the weeping of the snakes, the lizards, the frogs, and all the other reptiles, and called them to him. He showed kindness to every one of them, leaving none unnoticed; and the reptiles crawled back happily to their holes, saying: "This is the first man not to take up a stone when he sees us; this man looks at us and says kind words to us.'

Now Kuchuk-Adam found in the mountains kara-tash, the black stone which kills whatever it touches; but it did not kill Kuchuk-Adam, because he was a wizard. He then ran in pursuit of Lenin, vilely rejoicing:

'I'll overtake Lenin and throw

the black stone at him, and he will die.'

But when Kuchuk-Adam ran across the steppe the snakes blocked his path, twining themselves into a hedge. He stumbled and fell, dropping the black stone, and when he reached out for it a frog jumped up and swallowed it. She then jumped into the water and died, and the water-snakes buried her in the ooze, while ok-kilen, the poisonous arrow-snake, lay watching on the bank.

Kuchuk-Adam did not dare approach the pool, for there is no remedy for the bite of an ok-kilen.

The fierce Kuchuk-Adam tore his beard and threw himself on the arrowsnake with a rock in his hand; but the snake arose, looking at him with its green eye cold and calm, for the reptile was sure of its strength. KuchukAdam was frightened; his heart froze with terror, and he ran away howling with fear.

Then Lenin returned, for a swallow had told him the news. He stepped over the ok-kilen and ordered the water-snakes to bring him the body of the frog, which he buried in the ground, saying to the steppe, the sky, and the reptiles:

In this repulsive body lived a great courage and a high spirit. Mourn over her: she gave her life for the happiness of all.'

And the steppe wept and the sky wept over a small, slippery body, and the snakes and other reptiles cried with a great, sorrowful cry.

Weeping over the sparrow and the frog, Lenin continued his journey with a step so light that it did not flatten the grass. His great soul could mourn for the humble. As he walked across the steppe and the forest, prickly shrubs took their branches out of his way lest they scratch his face. Fireflies lighted his path at night, and if he lay down to

sleep the trees made a bed for him with their branches.

But death lay ahead. Kuchuk-Adam dug a large hole, which he filled with sharp spikes and then concealed with branches and leaves. But the earth pulled the sharp spikes into its bosom and became soft as down. For the earth was loath to drink any more tears of the slaves and the hungry, whom Lenin was to set free. And when Lenin fell into the hole not even a finger was hurt. The trees round about bent down their branches, and on them Lenin climbed out as upon a ladder. Crossing the mountains, the steppe, and the forest, he finally came to the

swamps.

Kuchuk-Adam, with a host of demons, flew over the swamps, burned will-o'-the-wisps, luring Lenin into deadly quicksands; but a small sandpiper flew ahead and pointed out the safe way. The swamp was firm, but the tirmuz grass kept tangling his feet and slowing his pace. And Lenin cursed the tirmuz grass, and it became bitter as wormwood.

Lenin then left the swamps, his legs wounded by the tirmuz, and arrived in the city, where the houses are of stone, and where an iron pathway is laid and machines fly across the face of the sky. And he went to the greatest city of all, which stands on the seashore in the north.

As he passed through the cities his ears heard lamentations, his eyes saw blood and tears, and his heart was filled with great anger and hatred and pity.

All this time Kuchuk-Adam tried to overtake Lenin and arrive first at the great northern city, where he hoped to put all the poor and oppressed into prison; for he knew that one word from Lenin would suffice and all the slaves would follow him and make him invincible. Then Kuchuk-Adam jumped into a bird-machine and flew northward

at great speed; but eagles pounced upon him and tore the machine's wings to shreds, and Kuchuk-Adam could fly no farther. But Lenin sat astride an eagle, and reached the northern city.

There he took a disciple and went to the outskirts of the city, where he lived in a shelter of boughs, fasting, strengthening his spirit for the coming struggle, and teaching his disciple. And the eagles which had escorted him to the city flew every day to see KuchukAdam still walking and discover how near the city he was. And one day they said to Lenin: "To-morrow KuchukAdam will be here.'

Then Lenin and his disciple went to the city, raised up those who lay in the dust, and lighted a great fire; so that when Kuchuk-Adam arrived the next day he saw smoke and blood in the city. Upon the main square he saw Lenin speaking about truth to the people. And he saw also the dead bodies of rich men, the oppressors. They lay without covering, and dogs licked their blood. The heart of KuchukAdam stood still in icy horror, and he fled from the angry, flaming city.

And Lenin beat his enemies with the red stone, and began building new life with the white stone. But great was the hatred in Kuchuk-Adam, and, turning into a woman, he decided to try once more to kill Lenin.

One day Lenin went to speak words of truth to those whom he had liberated, but as he was leaving the assembly Kuchuk-Adam in a woman's likeness shot two poisoned arrows straight into his heart.

But Lenin did not die. The White Worm who emerges from the earth once every hundred years came to Lenin and put some of its juice into his wounds and healed him. But KuchukAdam, in the form of the woman, was sentenced to death by the Soviet of the liberated.

Kuchuk-Adam, however, was not much frightened. He knew that nothing but the venom of ok-kilen, the arrow-snake, could kill him, and he thought: 'I will pretend that I am dead, and then kill Lenin.'

But the arrow-snake poisoned the arrows that the executioner used to kill Kuchuk-Adam, and they penetrated into his very heart, and an ill-smelling smoke rose from his body.

Years went by. Lenin was building new life. No lament was heard on earth; no tears or blood were seen; and the steppe was saying to the sun and the stars: 'See how Lenin liberated the earth.'

And he built and built without rest, with the help of his white stone: for he was as skillful and mighty in building as he was in fighting.

When he felt that his last hour was coming, Lenin went into the steppe and buried the kysyltash, the red stone, so that the rich men should not find it and use it to enslave the poor.

Then he shut himself up in his room and wrote a big book which begins with these golden words:

'Do not spare your life for the happiness of the people, since I did not spare mine.'

He wrote about all nations in his book; and about the Uzbegs, the Tad

jiks, the Turkomans, and Kirghiz he wrote separately, willing freedom to them all.

Then Lenin died, and we wept over him, the mountains upon which he had trod shed tears, and the sky sighed mightily with thunderbolts. All that was living lamented. Snakes, lizards, and frogs bewailed the only man who had loved them and said of them: 'Never touch reptiles, and they will not touch you. They too live and want to be happy.'

He died, and his disciples embalmed his body so that every poor man could come and see his liberator. They wrought his will, and the earth became happy. And all will sing his praise; but on the head of Kuchuk-Adam, whose soul is as dirty as a wild boar, they will heap maledictions.

I have finished. Glory to God the allmerciful and all-powerful, who gave force to my poor tongue to tell of the great fiery avenger who liberated the earth and made it happy. Our children will bow before Lenin's children; and the children of Kuchuk-Adam will be despised by all unto the fiftieth generation. People will stone them in the streets and spit in their faces. The earth has never seen a greater evil than Kuchuk-Adam, who dared raise his hand against Lenin, the light of the world.

It is common knowledge that many clubs even of the first rank are finding the task of making both ends meet more and more serious each succeeding year. In some instances deficits have been met by the simple process of raising subscriptions, but this method can hardly fail to have the unsatisfactory result, if not of producing numerous retirements, certainly of checking, save in exceptional cases, the influx of new members. Here and there changes in management and reductions of staff have enabled helpful economies to be effected. But, speaking generally, clubs are going through a critical period, and even with old institutions whose stability before the war seemed permanently assured the outlook gives cause for grave misgiving.

The reasons for this unfortunate state of things are more or less clearly understood, and have been openly discussed in various quarters. The growth of the restaurant habit, the increasing tendency to restlessness as expressed more particularly in motor travel, and the much freer participation of womenfolk in social intercourse of a kind formerly restricted almost entirely to men, have all combined to make club life less popular with this generation than with the last. The cost, again, of running a club is, of course, very much greater than it was a dozen years ago, when salaries, wages, rates, and taxes, and outlay on heating, lighting, and repairs, were so much 1 From the Outlook (London Independent weekly), November 13

lower. Bigger entrance fees and subscriptions may serve temporarily, as noted above, to balance higher overhead charges where a club has a great name and membership in it is considered either so much a social matter of course, or such an important privilege, that there is always a long waiting list. But the limit in these directions is soon reached even if there are no detrimental reactions. It is a sign of the times that not long ago a member of one of the most exclusive clubs in London was surprised, on tendering his resignation, to receive a letter from the secretary urging him to reconsider a decision which a few years back would have been accepted with absolute indifference, and almost with veiled satisfaction as making room for an eager and desirable new candidate.

Close discussion of all the factors involved in this situation would be a particularly complicated business, since in the various classes in which clubs may be grouped circumstances differ widely. But one or two points may perhaps usefully be noted for consideration by those to whom club life still appeals, if only on the score of restfulness and quiet comfort. The first of these is the importance of gauging with some accuracy the competition of that now formidable rival, the up-to-date restaurant. Putting aside the special arrangements which some clubs are able to make for the entertainment of lady guests, there is no doubt that in one respect the restaurant scores heavily-in the evening