by, "how my door came to be open, and how the tools that I found in the passage got there."

The thieves had stopped in their work at the first clang of the bell, and, when they heard the rush of feet, they fled. But as they passed the lighted windows, they were seen by several persons who knew them. The police, being told who they were, caught them easily, and put them in prison.

As for Tom, when he went back to school, Bill Blunt and all the other rough boys were kind to him; and, instead of calling him.

"Coward by nature and Coward by name,
Good for nothing at fight or game,"

they used to say two lines, made up by a first-class lad:

"Nature and name are sometimes at strife,
For a Coward saved our master's life."

Selected.

Watch ye, stand fast in the faith, quit you like men, be strong. Let all that ye do be done in love.

I Corinthians xvi. 13-14.

1. Who are the boys in this story?

2. How did Bill treat Tom?

3. What did Bill tell Tom to do that night?

4. What did Tom discover?

5. How did he frighten the men away?

6. What kind of a boy did Tom prove himself to be?

THE BURNING OF THE WINDSOR HOTEL

THE most awful hotel fire New York has ever known was traced to the tossing away of a match while it was yet alight. It fell against a lace curtain hanging before an open window. In another instant the flimsy curtain was ablaze, and the flames, fanned by the wind, ate their way all unnoticed through one ceiling after another up the front of the building. Let me tell you more about it:

It was three o'clock in the afternoon on the 17th of March, 1899. The big Windsor Hotel, with all its flags flying, smiled down on a long line of green-scarfed men parading Fifth Avenue in honor of the good St. Patrick. The hotel covered the avenue block from Forty-sixth to Forty-seventh Street, and its windows, up to the sixth story, were filled with guests watching the gay scene. The sidewalks were black with crowds who sang and whistled the lively Irish airs the bands. played as they marched by.

A waiter in the hotel caught sight of the blazing curtains, and he hurried to the main entrance, shouting loudly, "Fire! Fire! The Windsor is afire!"

But his excited cries were drowned in the music outside, and within all was wild confusion. Unfortunately, no one thought of sending in a fire alarm. Or else, as often happens, every one thought that some one else had done so. Finally a man in the street noticed smoke curling about the hotel roof, and drew the attention of

a policeman to it. The next second the alarm was ringing, and within a minute and a half the first fire engines were on the spot. A dozen firemen, seeing the terrible danger the guests were in, climbed like squirrels up the long ladders even while they were being raised against the hotel walls.

The guests in the hotel, hearing the engines, looked up and down the avenue idly, wondering where the fire might be, and thinking it a pity that the parade was spoiled. Little did they dream that even then great fans of flame were sweeping through the halls behind their rooms, cutting off all chance of escape in that direction. Indeed, the sight of the firemen's helmets rising directly in front of their windows gave many of them their first warning of danger.

It would be far too sad a story were I to describe the awful things that happened that lovely spring day. Instead, let me tell you how a number of lives were saved by coolness in the face of danger, by ready obedience to orders, or through deeds of loyalty and of true heroism.

A coil of rope hung near the window in every room in the hotel, placed there to be used as a fire escape, if necessary. A card attached to it gave full directions how to lower one's self to the street with the rope, in case of fire. When the time to use it came, few remembered the rope and still fewer took time to read the directions.

One man, however, kept perfectly cool and remem