that we had only one steamboat, the 'Faidherbe,' and that that steamer had been sent to Mechra er Rek to get reënforcements and munitions in case of a second attack by dervishes. And to-day he warned us that all transportation of munitions was prohibited on the Nile, that he had given orders to the commanders of his gunboats. To keep us from exercising our protectorate he had left a battalion, five guns, and an armored gunboat with ten rapid-firing guns to stop the 'Faidherbe.' He had left at Sobat another battalion, artillery, and another gunboat - a no less formidable array. We could not complain that the English did not take our forces seriously. For form's sake Marchand protested once again. I took his letter an hour later to Kaimakam Jackson Bey.

Jackson Bey received me in his tent. He showed me how the rain of the night before had soaked it through and through. An ugly dog with muddy feet was stretched out on his bed. The major apologized, but he was such a remarkable hunting dog! Amiable, Amiable, even affable and conciliatory, the Kaimakam spoke very little French. He reassured me immediately as to the fate of the 'Faidherbe.' The Sirdar had given strict orders that no difficulty should be raised and that the steamer should be allowed to pass on its first voyage with its full cargo no matter what it was. As to the letter addressed to Kitchener, he refused to accept it. He had the air of being extremely disturbed and repeated in a lamentable tone: 'I cannot, I cannot.'

"Well, then,' said I, 'give me a formal written statement that you refuse.'

'But I don't know how to write French.'

'No matter, write English.' And he willingly wrote it out.

Once this affair was over, Jackson inquired about the climate and fever, which seemed to worry him a good deal, and especially about the length of the winter, which he wanted to see ended. I took a wicked pleasure in giving him something to worry about. Fever! There was no place in the world except Mechra where there was so much fever as at Fashoda. It was the fever capital. Moreover, from 1870 to 1884 even the Egyptians had used Fashoda as a kind of penal colony. Here was where they sent their criminals. Fashoda was a convict colony- that is, a colony of people whom it was desirable to get rid of. If we Frenchmen were not sick it was only because we were all old hands in the Sudan and therefore immune. Knowing what we were getting into, Marchand had chosen us among a thousand. Moreover, the worst season had n't yet come. We should have to wait until the end of the winter, two months later. Then the sun would begin to dry up the soaking soil, and all the miasmas now kept down by the water would begin to spread, terrible and deadly.

If I exaggerated a little bit, I did not say anything that was not pretty nearly true.

When I went back to report, I returned the refused letter to Marchand together with the certificate of refusal. Thereafter we had nothing to do but wait for word from our Government. How would it act? In what direction would it move?

It will be remembered that when Alexander the Great asked Diogenes what he could do for him the philosopher requested that the king might be pleased to step aside out of his light. This story has always made me feel kindly toward Alexander. Renunciation ceases to be admirable when it plants itself on the heights of self-conscious superiority. Just so, I cannot enter into Emerson's enthusiasm over the famous reply of his friend Thoreau, who, when asked what was his favorite dish, answered, "The nearest.' He scorned the rest of us poor dogs. Crates, and all cynical philosophers of ancient and modern times, run as true to paganism as any Epicurean. There is an orgy of pride as well as of the senses; the former is probably the more deadly of the two. 'Aude, hospes, contemnere opes,' Evander exhorted Eneas; and the reward promised for greatly daring to despise wealth was association with the gods, in Olympian aloofness from mere human herds.

It is not hard or heroic to flout Fortune if thereby we nourish our selfesteem. As long as we think we are fine porcelain in a world of clay, what matters it whether we live in a tub or a kennel or a shanty by Walden pond or a marble palace. Marcus Aurelius and his successors kept assiduous diaries, and drew isothermic maps of their mental state every day, and compiled weather reports out of them for the guidance of the less wise. Each thought

his observatory the holiest temple in the universe and cut a gallant figure before admirers by flinging a scornful glove in the face of Fortune. They were rough to her when they thought anyone was looking. We now suspect that they courted her in secret.

When pride completes the circle of humility the two extremes meet on a common ground of asceticism. This juxtaposition in one and the same setting has deceived many. It is a strange fact that sanctity and sin should at times in their supreme human forms issue in contempt for the lower pleasures. Experts have the hardest work sometimes to determine which is which. One cannot always judge infallibly even in his own case. It is sometimes beyond all but the highest capacity to disentangle the threads of a proud self-respect from the purely Christian texture in the complex web of motives which make up one's spiritual life. A clever person might be expected to be able to detect the considerable difference between God and himself. But it is precisely the clever persons who are always getting themselves confused about two objects which clearly ought to be far more distinguishable apart than a hawk from a handsaw.

I do not pretend to the power of laying down rules in the matter. If I were to hazard an opinion it would be that the true asceticism of noble spirits is never armored either with prickly eccentricities or starched coats of re

spectability or forbidding displays of individualism and temperament. It rather believes in and practises disarmament, and exposes itself, after a manner resembling a merry invitation, to every approach, whether friendly or hostile. It calls for the exercise of coldest nerve, most deliberate courage, unquailing endurance, and judgment balanced to the nicety of a hair. None of the brave valors of war, adventure, or love, makes so many demands upon ingenuity and swift decision. Listen to the story of Francis de Cardona and judge whether I speak the truth.

Francis was the son of a Spanish duke. I have taken the incidents in his life, which I am about to relate, from Louis de Ponte's classic biography of Balthasar Alvarez. The son of the Duke of Cardona was Rector of the University of Salamanca when he took it into his head to spurn the rich pledges of fortune by entering a Jesuit novitiate. One of his first charges was the care of the community refectory. Do not entertain the picture of a maître d'hôtel in evening clothes, by a glance maintaining order in the scurrying lines of communication between the kitchen and the trenchermen. It was the business of Francis to scrub floors and to wash dishes with as little damage as possible. His distinguished friend, Dr. Oiedo, found him so employed and was shocked and scandalized. The ex-Rector of the University was genuinely bewildered at the good doctor's strange point of view. He declared that he was having the time of his life and would not exchange his job for that of the Pope himself, and sent his visitor away thinking so furiously that he too plunged into the same adventure and followed Francis into the novitiate.

It was not long before Cardona made the interesting discovery that life, no matter how we arrange it, is sure to have its puzzles and perplexities. "The

thread of life, like other threads or skeins of silk, is full of snarls and incumbrances.' Francis had made a bonfire of his riches and honors, and had set out without impediments upon a spiritual quest. He thought he had succeeded in simplifying life, and was astonished to find he had only made its complexities more subtle and insidious. When Fortune ceases to be pursued she becomes the pursuer; she refuses to be ignored. Francis had failed to understand that menial services in the scullery assume the character of brilliant performances when a Spanish grandee and ex-Rector of a University undertakes them. He found himself moving in an aura of admiration. Superiors and brethren were highly edified by his humility. Horrors! Canonization is necessarily a post-mortem affair; else it is a menace and an infernal nuisance.

Francis found himself in a painful dilemma. He sat down to ponder on the curious fact that there is a limit beyond which one may not go in flouting Fortune, without falling into the opposite extreme of the most ingratiating courtship of her; as Cicero's philosophers became famous by writing books in contempt of fame.

A less resourceful character than Francis would have crawled back into his shell and followed a policy of caution which would have robbed the world of much exquisite delight. He yearned for the mad excitement of trailing Fortune's banners in the mire: at the same time, he must above all things elude the applause of sharp-eyed and discerning associates. This was the task which Francis de Cardona set himself: his life henceforth resolved itself largely into a series of brave and amusingly clever attempts to accomplish it. 'What I shall say may be unhesitatingly believed,' writes de Ponte in introducing his account of Francis, citing as his authority Francis's con

temporary and friend, Father Oiedo, 'whose virtues are a guaranty of his sincerity.' Three centuries have done nothing to blur the picture which still preserves the freshness of life, a delicious mixture of quizzical humor, high spirits, stern and unfaltering purpose, and spiritual exaltation sweetly and humanly attractive.

In every large establishment there are two places where the exercise of patience, unsupported by any approving recognition, is in special demand; the kitchen and the stable. Francis was not long in a Jesuit house before he fixed his attention upon these two precincts as very promising fields for the plying of his little private business. He prepared the way by confidential disclosures of certain weaknesses of his to everyone in the house: 'You know, I have always had an intense interest in the cuisine and the stud. I take the liberty of considering myself an accomplished amateur in both departments. You should see some of my dishes! It is a crying shame that idle gourmets should enjoy all the good things for themselves. Are the servants of God never to be refreshed according to their due when they are worn out by study and prayer and the labors of the ministry? Ah, if I could only tinker and potter about at large in the kitchen and watch my favorite pudding swell into a brown miracle! Trust me to do pigeon to a turn. And as for horses, carissime, I dote on horses. How they must miss me! Carissime, if I were not a Jesuit, I think I should be either a cook or a gitano.'

In such guileful wise did Francis proceed. Now Jesuits, who figure in the world's legends as crafty beings, can furnish, as Francis observed, an astonishing amount of simplicity to practise upon. While there is evidence of vague doubts and films of incredulity, owing perhaps to the jealousy of the

regular cook and the established stablehands, and perhaps also to some rather glaring failures of Francis in his chosen employments, still the rank and file of the community could not come to a conclusion. After all, noblemen, we know, cultivate surprising eccentricities. This is an amiable weakness of Francis, our brother, a survival of his masterful past. Let him indulge it if he enjoys it.

"The care of animals,' says de Ponte, 'was a task he sought after, and in which he said he was very skillful. The Superior did not believe it, of course; but he willingly gave him this commission to please him. This gave rise to a very edifying incident.' Before we proceed to narrate this incident let us pause to salute that Superior. Francis thought he was having all the fun. But Father Superior was not so simple as he looked when he gave this Spanish grandee head in his mad career through the china-shops of convention, not altogether hopeless of getting some amusement, and inconvenience perhaps, out of the thing himself. Father Superior was a shrewder man than his Father Minister, as we shall see.

One day a Father from a remote province arrived at the Jesuit house in Salamanca, mounted on a sorry nag in the last stages of emaciation and exhaustion. The poor beast was covered with sores and could scarcely maintain an upright position. A little group had formed around the animal in the courtyard, trying to interpret, as charitably as might be, the visitor's choice of a mount. Francis happened along at the time and with the swift intuition of a genius recognized a golden opportunity. 'Father Minister,' he said, 'I think I can save that horse, which seems to be in a bad way.' It would look as if Father Minister, who is the one that manages details of the house, had reason to suspect the expert qualifications

of Francis. But, according to the account of Father de Ponte, Francis urged his point with so much eloquence that, after hemming and hawing and many a dubious regard, Father Minister finally yielded a reluctant consent. It is hard to see why the good Father hesitated over the simple request unless he had some mysterious premonition of what was to follow.

Now began a very saturnalia, so to speak, of humiliation. The situation, as it unfolded, developed rich possibilities. It turned out to be even a more excellent opportunity than Francis anticipated, and I think we shall all agree that he rose to it perfectly. He first dressed all the equine sores and then applied bandages of brilliant and varied colors. It was observed

for Father Minister was reconnoitring uneasily on the outskirts- it was observed that after everything was ready for the trip to the pasture at the other end of Salamanca, Francis wasted some time in an absorbing study of the position of the sun in the heavens. 'What nonsense,' growled Father Minister under his breath, 'as if the conjunction of planets could cure a horse!'

At last the right astrological moment seemed to arrive, and Francis started off down the main avenue of the city. It took him by the principal entrance of the University, then in the heyday of its prosperity, not dreaming of its sad spoliation in the Napoleonic wars. Francis had studied the position of the sun to a nicety. He reached the gates of the University just as the students were swarming out by hundreds. Delectable sight! Ex-Rector and Spanish nobleman, with a cast-off cap on his head and a stableman's cloak slung about him, leading by a halter down the most crowded thoroughfare of Salamanca the gorgeously bandaged and limping remains of an ancient steed in the last stages of dissolution! A mob

of jeering and appreciative urchins furnished the complement of the quaint parade.

History stops to note that there was 'something of an air of triumph in his countenance.' Of course! How sudden and splendid opportunity can be! That morning, when the clamorous bell had tumbled him out of his narrow cot in the dormitory, the opening eye of day was dull and sleepy, without the remotest hint of what was coming. And now here he was wallowing, so to speak, in the heartiest repudiation of the nice respectabilities and punctilios of Fortune. He had her bound hand and foot, and was dragging her at his chariot wheels, or rather at the heels of his borrowed and wobbling Rosinante down all the gutters of Salamanca. 'Something of an air of triumph on his countenance,' quotha!

We are told that after the first flurry of sensation had swept over the gaping crowds 'some praised, some blamed, and many just laughed at it.' Among those who blamed were certain sensi

tive young Jesuits who were among the throngs pouring out of the lecturerooms in time to behold the spectacle which their brother Francis had staged. They were chagrined beyond measure that the Jesuits should thus be exposed to the mockery of the city by the illregulated piety of a silly novice. They could scarcely get home in time to report the matter to the Superior. They burst in on him precipitately and stated their grievance. He entered into their point of view, sympathized with them in this common disgrace, and dismissed them with the assurance that the thing would be looked into. After they had gone the Superior, we may suppose, enjoyed a quiet little chuckle.

That evening he called Francis upon the carpet. Could not Francis humiliate himself without humiliating the