"I should n't think you'd call that bad luck," said Phaeton. "For now when there is a fire, it will be a big one, if there's no fire department to prevent it from spreading."

"But the best fun," said Ned, "is to see the firemen handle the fire, and to see Red Rover Three wash Cataract Eight. I saw her do it beautifully at annual inspection. What I want is a tremendous big fire, and plenty of engines to play on it."

The explanation of Ned's alarming intelligence was that the fire department had got into a quarrel with the common council, and threatened to disband. One company, who had a rather shabby engine-house, and were refused an appropriation for a new one, tied black crape on the brakes of their engine, drew it through the principal streets, and finally, stopping right before the court-house yard, lifted the machine bodily and threw it over the fence into the yard. Then they threw their fireman-hats after it, and disbanded. This company had been known as Reliance Five. The incident frightened the common council into giving the other companies what they asked for; but there was never more a No. 5 Fire company in that city.

I had become pretty tired of hanging out my ladder every night, and rolling it up every morning, when at last "the hour of destiny struck," as Jimmy the Rhymer might say-that is, the courthouse bell struck the third district, and steeple after steeple caught up the tune, till, in a few minutes, the whole air was full of the wild clangor of bells. At the same time, the throats of innumerable men and boys were open, and the cry of "Fire!" was pouring out from them in a continuous stream, as the crowds rushed along.

"Wake up, Ned!" said Phaeton. "Here it is at last, and it's a big one."

Ned bounded to his feet, looked through the window, exclaimed "Oh, glory!" as he saw the ruddy sky, and then began to get into his clothes with the utmost rapidity. Suddenly he stopped.

"Look here, Fay," said he. "This is Sunday night. I'm afraid Father wont let us go, after all." "Perhaps not," said Phaeton.

"The question is, what is best?" said Ned. "It is evident we ought to go by the window, but it's too high from the ground.”

"Then we must make a rope," said Phaeton. "What can we make it of?" "The bedclothes, of course." "That's a splendid idea!—that saves us," said Ned, and he set about tying the sheets together.

Before Phaeton was dressed, Ned had made the rope and cast it out of the window, first tying one

end to the bed-post, and, sliding down to the ground, made off, without waiting for his brother.

He came straight to my ladder, and had his foot on the first rung, when a heavy hand was laid upon his shoulder.

"So you're the one he sends in, are you?” said a deep voice, and Ned looked around into the face of a policeman. "I'd rather have caught the old one," he continued, "but you'll do. I've been watching this burglar arrangement for two hours. And by the way, I must have some of it for evidence; the old one may take it away while I'm disposing of you." And he turned and with his pocket-knife cut off about a yard of my ladder.

"NED LOOKED AROUND INTO THE FACE OF A POLICEMAN."

Holding this "evidence" in one hand and Ned with the other, he hurried away to the police station.

It was useless for Ned to protest that he was not a burglar, nor a burglar's partner, or to tell the

IT is not often that a painter, or artist of any kind, gives up nearly all his time to making pictures for children, and yet we are going to tell you something about one of the best artists of this century, who has devoted a large portion of his life to drawing pictures for children's books.

His name is Ludwig Richter, and you may see his picture on this page. He was born in Dresden, Germany, in 1803, and, like most other good artists, he showed his talent when he was very young. But he did not begin at once to make pictures for children. It often takes a long while for people to find out what they can do best, and so it was in Richter's case.

For some time he occupied himself in painting beautiful little pictures on porcelain cups and saucers and vases. Very fine ware of this kind is made in Dresden, and it required excellent artists to paint the exquisite pictures with which it is decorated. So Richter, who had studied a great deal, and had worked very hard at his profession, was able to ornament this Dresden ware very carefully and beautifully, and the work that he put on it made it more valuable than before he painted it.

He had taken a journey to Italy, and, in order to have plenty of time to study and. to sketch the beautiful scenery through which he passed, he walked all the way back.

Whenever he saw some fine trees, or a pretty brook, or a nice little cottage, with children playing about it, or anything that he thought would make a good picture, he stopped and made a sketch of it.

And so,

when he reached home, he had a great many sketches of real things, which he afterward used in the pictures he drew and painted. Some artists draw people and houses and trees and animals in their pictures from their recollections of such things, or they get their ideas of them from other pictures.

But Richter makes his drawings directly from nature, and that is one reason why they are so good. Another reason is that he puts some of his own kind and tender feeling into his pictures. He tries to make the little children in them look as good and happy as he would always like little children to be.

Well, he did not always paint vases and cups and such things. After a time, he turned his attention to making pictures for books and maga

He was so successful in making drawings for books intended for children that this soon became his principal business. He has drawn all sorts of pictures for all sorts of children-some for little toddlers, and some for the big boys and girls; and more than this, these pictures are so good and true that grown people take great delight in them. Richter's drawings are sometimes religious, such as the illustrations to the "Lord's Prayer," and sometimes lively and amusing, and they are almost always filled with quaint and pretty fancies.

LUDWIG RICHTER.

Some of Richter's pictures have been printed in ST. NICHOLAS, and thousands of them have been enjoyed by German little boys and girls, who like them all the more, perhaps, because they can easily see that it was among the children of his father-land that their artist went for his models.

I DON'T think that Mother Goose herself could make better pease-porridge than Barbara. Indeed, as Mother Goose was a literary lady, I doubt whether she could make as good. While she was gaining fame as a poetess she must, sometimes, have intrusted the porridge-making to somebody else; and we can not read the story of the four-andtwenty blackbirds, baked in a pie, who began to sing as soon as the pie was opened, without a painful suspicion that Mother Goose was accustomed to very "slack" ovens indeed, or that her knowledge of the art of cooking was very small.

Barbara read her Bible, "The Pilgrim's Progress," and "The Children of the Abbey," and she had a cloudy idea that the two latter were both religious books, and devoutly to be believed, by which it will be seen that literature was not Barbara's strong point. But cooking was. Even such

every-day and uninteresting things as meat and bread were delicious, as Barbara cooked them, and her soups were never the watery, flavorless things that are often unworthily dignified by that name. But when it came to her cream-cakes and peachfritters, and pop-overs, there are no words that can do justice to them. And, besides all that, Barbara was an artist in dough. Her doughnut boys were so life-like that it seemed a wonder that they did not speak, and she could make a whole farm of gingerbread, a house and barn, cows and horses, and sheep, hens, and turkeys, and ducks and geese, little pigs and big pigs, dogs that would almost wag their tails, and roosters that were going to crow the very next minute. And some of them were likenesses of individuals. You would have recognized Ebenezer, the hired man, in gingerbread, the moment you saw him, and old Buttercup,