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36 elder brother standing before him. So Ben was settled in the great metropolis, with no notion of a change, excepting he might be called upon to turn soldier. Well, there was small fear of there being any war with Spain, or any other country. So thought Larry, and his thoughts were not much different from those of many others until the thunderbolt broke.

The letter from Walter took longer to peruse, for Walter always had so much to say, and wrote such a twisted hand, and Larry was compelled to laugh outright ere he was done. Certainly Walter had had his full share of adventures.

"What in creation made you ship to Honolulu?" he wrote. "Why, it's almost half around the world, and you'll make me a beggar with buying such high-priced postage stamps when I'm writing to you. I shouldn't know where Honolulu was, only we're all reading so much about the Hawaiian Islands these days. Why didn't you ship to Alaska, or the North Pole, while you were at it? Better strike Peary for an opening on his next expedition to the land of ice.

"Perhaps I didn't have it as hard as you, or