double door was soon swung open and a little girl of about seven came out. She was faultlessly dressed. Her hair was combed and waxed till it shone like a mirror. It was neatly braided into a queue which ended in a bow of scarlet silk thread. She wore no stockings or shoes, but her tiny feet were discriminatingly clean.

I was then cordially invited to step into the hall, which was just in the middle, between two side rooms. A chair was placed for me and my guide took his place opposite me. He ordered the girl to take off my shoes and clean them at once.

The hall itself was plain, devoid of decorations, save a big Shrine of Ancestral Tablets and the image of the Goddess Mercy, before which a bundle of incense sticks was burning in a porcelain bowl half filled with ashes of the same fragrant material. On either side of the shrine, which was a plain, simple case of hard wood, was a red candle that had never been lighted. All these objects were placed on a long, narrow table. Immediately below this long table was another square one, on which nothing was placed except some pieces of paper which evidently the children had been cutting.

"Pardon me, my friend," I said at last, unable to restrain my curiosity. "Pardon me for saying that your circumstances do not seem to necessitate your begging for a living. Your house indicates that you and your family are spending your time at least as comfortably and easily as my coolie servants. Do you mean to say that you have to be a beggar, after all?"

"Have to be! Why, that is as much my profession as shop keep ing is yours. Our fates are all predestined by the will of heaven. There is absolutely no use to try to work against this heavenly will.

If

a man is destined to be a loafer from house to house, he does it, because he is born with a complete set of beggars' bones. My mother consulted a well-known fortune teller of the city when I was young, who, after making half an hour's examination of my hands and feet, shook his head and declared that I was ushered into the world under most peculiar circumstances, and that I would be a rich man to the poor and a poor man to the rich, and now here I am as you see me."

My friend then introduced a dozen or so instances to prove his point. One beggar friend of his saved three years' beggings, and then started to earn his living by selling crockery ware which he hawked about the town. He did this for less than ten days, before he slipped down by treading on an orange peel, broke his whole load of china ware, and nearly broke his neck as well. Next he invested all his capital in peanuts. His oven burnt, his house went with it, and he was again a beggar.

"No, no use whatever," concluded my beggar philosopher. "Let a man abide by his fate, even if it is that of a beggar. Let not the frog try to have as big a belly as the buffalo."

At this point I changed the subject. I asked my friend to let me have a glance at his beggar uniform, the beggar stick, the bowl and the greasy bag. I was shown to a side room, where three or four dirty, lice-laden suits of filthy rags. were hanging.

"My wife goes out begging too, and she makes good use of one of these, you see," eagerly remarked the beggar. "And when we feel inclined to make more money in one day, she takes our girl along, has her eyes closed, and people taking her for a blind child, always give her good alms. Dirt is cheap in

this city, and by the application of it with a little bit of water, we easily disguise our faces.

"But, friend, you talk as though your profession were respectable." "Certainly. Are not all of us beggars in a greater or less degree? The great Yang-tse-Kiang is always begging water from the streams, the showers, the mountains, even the last drop of dew. The Emperor is all the time begging revenue from his people. Even you-pardon me for speaking the truth are constantly begging your customers for a patronage.

"Well said," I cried, jumping to my feet. "But my shoes are cleaned and I must see the chief right away."

We went the rest of our way uninterrupted, and arrived at the worthy gentleman's residence in good time. His house was a palace, decked in the fashion of the day. It was spacious, beautifully built, with an elegant stone-paved courtyard, by the side of which was a little school house with half a dozen children shouting over their lessons. In the center of the yard was a huge basin filled with water in which some large gold fishes were swimming. At one corner was an artificial mountain, covered with vines and flowers.

The chief, dressed in a fine blue silk gown, met me half way and conducted me to the hall, thence to the audience room. It was covered with drawings, famous mens' writings, and at one end of it was an ebony couch upon which lay the opium pipe and tray.

"So you have a wedding ceremony in your house," began my host. "Give your father my regrets at not being able to offer him my congratulations."

I was perfectly bewildered. How could this man know that there was such an occasion?

"Oh, it is nothing," said my host. "These poor people have to be given something to keep them quiet. They would insist upon having their shares, even if such a ceremony should take place in this house."

I expressed my willingness to give whatever reasonable amount he required, and requested him to take immediate action.

"Six hundred cash and you will be safe from annoyance. No beggar's shadow shall fall on your door for three days or I forfeit the money tenfold."

I loosed my purse and counted out the copper coins. I pocketed the receipt which was given me and left my host to his opium pipe.

"I swear this rascal has the air of a titled lord rather than that of a beggar chief," I cried to my guide when we were outside.

"Titled lord! There is more silk and satin and silver and gold in his house than in the magistrate's yamen. And are you not aware of this fact," continued the beggar, "that the headship of everything is desirable, be it the head of a nation, head of a shop, or even the head of a gang of thieves, or head of us beggars?"

"Enough," I muttered as I bade my guide farewell. "My fate is that of a shopkeeper; yours that of a beggar. Let us each stay by his own. But rather would I starve to death than sit on the beggar's mat or eat from the beggar's bowl!"

I posted the receipt for the six hundred cash over our street door. The next morning, one or two dirty ragamuffins, attracted by the sound of music or the scent of roast chicken, peeped into the door. But the writing acted like a charm and my friends of the rags and the bowl disappeared like will- o'-thewisps.

Students as well as alumni will be glad to see the story in this number by Stanley Waterloo, the well-known novelist. Mr. Waterloo was a student in the University from 1865 to 1868, and since then has been one of Michigan's most loyal alumni. At the request of the editors that he give them a story of the old days at Michigan, Mr. Waterloo very kindly consented to do so, and wrote them a letter which so well indicates his interest in everything connected with the University that we give it to our readers: Editor of the Inlander:

The glory of a University lies in the loyalty of its sons and daughters, and Michigan may well be proud of having among her loyal alumni so eminent a man of letters as Stanley Waterloo. It is not the breadth or thoroughness of the instruction it affords, but its associations and memories which give an institution its power over the imaginations of men and enables it to stamp its individuality upon them. The memory of the great men who have gone from this University, and who still look back with affection to their alma mater, is the greatest inspiration a student can have.

The enthusiasm which has been manifested in athletics this year cannot but he gratifying to every Michigan man. Anything that is worthy of support at all is worthy of being supported with enthusiasm and pure, amateur athletics which contribute more than anything else to

arousing a strong college spirit should certainly receive every encouragement. The same strenuousness which has marked the athletic interest should be carried into every department of college activity-into the work of the classrooms and seminaries, the oratorical contests, journalism, the literary societies, and every worthy college enterprise. Michigan is full of vigorous life which should be directed into definite channels for the accomplishment of definite results.

Recent events have given Michigan an opportunity to demonstrate that she can be great even in defeat. In the chief western football game of the year the team was conquered-conquered beyond doubt or peradventure by a team representing a university which two years ago had taken no place in western athletics. There was no comfort in the score; it was a slaughter of the old west by the new, and of a new team by an old one. Untried heroes lost to experienced heroes and there is little else to be said of the game. Yet to the writer's mind Michigan has never appeared in a better light, even when her victories shone brightest, than did she on Bennett Field Nov. 10th, and at Ann Arbor during the days that followed. The game was absolutely clean; the treatment accorded Iowa was beyond criticism as their managers cordially acknowledge; and Michigan's support of her vanquished warriors was of a tune which victors might well envy. Cheer after cheer greeted the battered and defeated team upon reaching the Russell House and the reception there and in the dining room later amounted to an ovation. The graduate manager of Iowa said after the game that he had never heard such continuous "rooting" for a losing team as he heard Michigan maintain at Bennett Park.

As indicated above, not only did the Michigan spirit not despair that day but

in the days that followed when the true proportions of the defeat came to be appreciated, the same honeful feeling has been maintained. The old attitude of indifference and criticism, the attitude of malicious fault-finding which the Inlander has deprecated other years, seems to have been largely overcome and the losers are loved because they are our losers and not laughed at because they did no better on the day of contest.

"Let the good work go on;" it is a trite expression but a fitting one. Michigan's men have been long years arriving at the conclusion that we cannot always win and that whether we win or no, the team deserves the support of every loyal student first and last and always. The "knocker" is not needed in college athletics and he is finding less room for his work as the seasons go by. When there is discord at home we can hope for little abroad.

The whole Iowa incident should serve as an example for other years and other games, defeats or victories as they may be. If we can always have a loyal student body on the side lines who will cheer when things are looking dark for the old yellow and blue; if we can have a gentlemanly team like that of the present year upon the field; if we can treat our opponents as we treated Iowa in the spirit of gentlemen and sportsmen; if we can always deserve such praise as we received from Coach Knipe and Manager McCutcheon; then always may Michigan

hope for success and in the long run attain it.

The contest in Detroit a few days ago showed what can be accomplished by continual practice and the long association of the same players on a team. The personnel of the Iowa eleven has remained unchanged for two years. Every man came to know his companions perfectly. He learned to cover up individual weaknesses and to bring out strong plays to the best advantage. The result was a perfect whole which moved with the accuracy and precision of a machine. Such an exhibition of scientific training is well worth seeing, and Michigan men will profit by the lesson. Michigan was seriously handicapped at the beginning of the season by the fact that many of the old players had left, and though the material at hand was excellent, the players were new to each other. One season is not sufficient to enable men to become accustomed to each other's style of play and to bring about that unity in a team which formed so striking a characteristic of Iowa's eleven.

With genuine, whole-souled admiration for their fine playing and manly conduct we concede the palm of superiority to the western team. Meanwhile we can console ourselves with the thought that another year will put into the fine material of our team the qualities which one season was not sufficient to develop.

College stories are wont to open with the student laying down his last book with a sigh of relief, after an evening's hard work, and, picking up his pipe, sinking back into an easy chair to watch the clouds of curling smoke rise above his head, and to see in them visions ofsomebody.

All students who smoke undoubtedly do this, the only difference being in the picture they like to call up.

This was exactly what Frank Marden was doing one cold December night, after he had drawn his chair close up to the blazing fire and listened for awhile to the wind howling around the corners of the house. Time, place and conditions favored his mood. What more conducive to musing than a stormy night outside, a cheerful fire and a soothing pipe with the curling smoke rising stealthily, dreamily, mystically?

So Marden watched the film of mist rising from his pipe bowl. It wreathed itself about the scenes of the past and his dreams of the future until he imagined that they were galloping down a pretty country road. He let her go a little ahead, and watched her flushed happy face, her streaming hair and graceful figure. Then on and on and on, till suddenly there was foaming water all around them, and he was straining every effort to guide their little canoe between the rocks. Only for an instant he glanced behind, but he noticed her steady hand on the paddle and the look of pleased excitement on her face. Then all was foam and black rocks and swiftly chasing trees on the shore until they came to the broad river. Then a round thing described a great curve in the air and fell down in a crowd of scrambling, plunging, yellow-clad humanity and

thousands of people on every side rose as one and he heard the continual roar of the college yell as it was taken up again and again at different parts of the field. But he saw only the pretty excited face at his side as she bent forward to watch every play. Suddenly it became dusk and he heard a voice and in the dim light a queenly figure was seated at the piano and he was dreaming within a dream. It was another girl this time. Now they were walking in the moonlight and he could hear the soft, even accents of her serious conversation.

Bang! Marden came to with a start. His pipe had fallen on the floor scattering the ashes over his coat. As he reached for his tobacco to replenish it his eye lit on the picture on one side of the mantel-piece. It was of a girl in hunting costume. Her strong, yet graceful figure and pose could well cause Diana's envy. On the other side was the picture of a girl of the Queen Louise type-innocent sweetness personified.

"There's no doubt about my being in love," muttered Marden to himself as he stuffed his pipe bowl, "the question is which one." He struck a match. "Just as true as I live when I'm with one I forget the other." Several steady puffs followed. "After all," he continued, "It's a question of mood. When I feel good and ready for a rollicking time with a girl who doesn't know what a care is, I go to her"-and he looked at the athletic girl. "Then when I'm in the other mood, when I'm serious, I think I love her," and he glanced at the other picture. Marden then relapsed into a contemplative silence, puffing steadily at his pipe.

,"I know what I'll do," he mused finally, "I'll go a month without writing or seeing either of them, and maybe by that