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chuckle over his discomfiture, for, while yesterday and Saturday night the coins clinked in the dishes with merry rapidity, now they barely dribble, and, when a clink is heard, by its very novelty it strikes through all other noises.

"Caught," they chuckle. "Yes, our Michel is caught this time. A cute one, he is. Yes, a cute one, Signor. No, not a politician. But cute, so cute. Ay, and this time he has been caught. Has the signor heard? The signor has but to cross the street and examine the blessed saint's shrine. 'Tis bare, Signor. Nought but pennies."

But there are others who are not so sure that Michel Siniscalchi is going to lose by his speculation. Among the younger generation of Italians his scheme is treated with considerable respect, and his Bowery friends wink when Michel's intelligence is aspersed.

"Lose?" queried Jack Gallagher, sitting with a group of friends in the café behind the shrine. "Lose, did you say? Aw, g'wan. Say, Michel wasn't born yesterday. He's got his brains in his head. He's too rapid for dese wops. Michel's got a business eye, he has. He's thinking of advertisin'. See that sign up there? See Michel's name on it, good and big? See them lights? All from Michel's store. Aw, he's a wise guy. He knows his game."

While Gallagher talked, the infrequent pennies, with an occasional nickel, dropped into the plates, and presently the figure was carried toward Spring Street, with at least 150 women and children and a band in the procession.

Simplicity and naturalness may be given to an explanatory article by putting it in the form of an interview with the person from whom the information is obtained; this was done in the following story from the New York Sun:

"For the last three years I have devoted my summer to making balanced aquariums to order," said a woman who is now in middle life. "I earn enough by this work to keep me comfortably during the winter, so I call myself a successful woman wage earner.

"I make my aquariums as nearly a perfect reproduction of natural conditions as possible. It is only since the discovery of balanced aquariums that the full decorative effect