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the vestibule of the auditorium. His women followed. Old Ettore brought up the rear. Maria, a little frightened, held fast to Tomasso's coat. Carmela and Teresa, their eyes bright with wonder, stared happily about. Through the wide doors ahead they caught glimpses of a great hall, with gay pennants hanging from the high ceiling and hundreds of lights. Above the low hum about them they could hear the steady shuffle of many people moving to their seats.

At last Tomasso reached the door. They were almost the last of the line.

"Tickets!" a young man dressed like the bridegroom in the window of Giuseppe, the tailor, held out his hand. "Tickets, please !"

Tomasso Soracco smiled and nodded to the hall beyond.

"Tickets!" Tomasso shook his head, spread both empty hands to witness, and nodded violently.

"No one admitted without tickets. Step aside, please."

Tomasso Soracco's good humor vanished. He turned angrily to Teresa. "Come here. Tell this donkey in his barbarous tongue that we come to see Michele. We are the family of Michele, and have nothing to pay."

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Figlio, figlio," she cried, "come quick! Explain to this crazy one." Tomasso shrugged his contempt of the young man and waited Iwith folded arms for Michele.

For a moment Michele stood just as he was when the crowd opened and the shrill voice of his mother came to his ears. Then he moved slowly forward. His face was white and set. He turned to the boy at the door. "These are my people," he said, distinctly; "I think they must-have forgotten their tickets."

In the stillness of dawn as before the birth of a new world he moved down the hall towards the front seats reserved for relatives. He saw the suppressed smiles in the women's eyes at the bobbing red roses on his mother's hat. He heard people sniff as they passed, scenting the strong, cheap perfume Teresa used. As they clattered noisily into their seats his mother whispered: He is getting

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old, that Ettore. Through his stupidness with the tickets the trouble came."

Michele moved off toward the platform. His place was with the honor men of his class. Somehow he found his seat. He sat down, staring blankly before him. He applauded mechanically when the others did. Vaguely he knew that one number of the programme after another was gone through, checked off as done forever. He heard nothing. From time to time he glanced towards the seats where his people sat. They were all sitting forward, interested, curious, a little awed. Once he caught old Ettore's eyes full on him. But the cobbler might have been dead, so rigid was the mask of his face. Michele trembled as if from cold. Then the blood rushed in a boiling stream to his head. He heard his name called. Michele stood up and stepped forward to take his degree. He saw the President's lips moving. He saw the paper in the President's outstretched hand. In the stillness, like two quick cracks of a pistol, he heard his mother's tense whisper, "Che fa? che fa?" and his father's quivering, "Silence! They make him—a gift." He looked about like a criminal trying to escape. In the smooth flat level of faces before him something caught and held his eye. Old Ettore sat forward, his great gray head erect, his twisted brown hands clasped tightly against his gray beard. Carmela's shy eyes glowed with excitement. Teresa's pretty, assertive face claimed him defiantly. But Tomasso Soracco and Maria, his wife, sat quietly hand in hand and the big tears ran unheeded down their cheeks.

It was over. He had slipped away with his people and they had brought him in triumph to the "feast." There was Pepe, the fat "boss ;" and Luigi, whose finger had gone "zip" in the machine; and the Santuccis, who had once brought the news of his fainting to Tomasso. Every one was redfaced from eating, and very happy. They laughed and talked, shouting one above the other. Tomasso Soracco kept bringing fresh bottles of wine. Maria filled and refilled the plates of little cakes. It seemed to Michele that he had been sitting for years at the table and had eaten mountains of small cakes. Every now and then Maria Soracco stopped to pat him on the shoulder.

"He loves yet the little cakes of his mother, my fine son!" And every time Michele an

swered, "They are the best cakes in the world."

But at last it was impossible to drink another glass of wine or eat another cake. Silence fell in the stifling room. Then, with the air of having waited for just this moment, Pepe stood up. Those about the table leaned forward expectantly, grasping their glasses in answer to Pepe's, held high in his right hand. Pepe cleared his throat.

"Friends, it gives me great pleasure to be here to-night with this happy family and with you all, my very good friends. Pepe's

round bullet head rolled on his shoulders as if he would include even the furnishings of the room in his good will. "I am proud to be here. I rejoice with our good compatriot Tomasso Soracco, with his good wife, and with his fine son Michele." Pepe bowed. "We are proud of you, Michele Soracco-we, your family, your friends, all the Italians of New York." Pepe's fat left hand extended New York to include the universe. 66 You are not yet twenty-two, and already you are first in your class, above the sons of rich Americans. You have brains, Michele Soracco, brains." Pepe paused dramatically. A murmur of approval ran about the table. Michele felt a hot wave of pity and love and selfconsciousness sweep over him. Tears stung the back of his eyes.

"Ecco! For that reason, here and now, I offer to you, for your own sake and in sign of appreciation for the faithful service of

your good father (Pepe's full black eyes touched softly the oval chin of Teresa), "onehundred-dol-lars a month as padrone of the men I send next week to Wisconsin for one year to make the roads of the State. Ecco! One-hundred-dollars."

Tomasso Soracco half rose from his chair. He sank back. He looked helplessly about. No one stirred. They sat, looking toward him, as if the words of Pepe had been a thunderbolt that had killed them where they sat.

Michele's eyes went about the table from face to face. He was smiling faintly. He saw the long, flat roads of gray dust and dark, heavy men tearing the earth. The smile crept down from his eyes to his lips. Instinctively his eyes sought Ettore's. He felt strangely like a little boy again, running down to the old cobbler. He saw again Luigi's finger wriggling on the floor. smile deepened. But Ettore did not glance from the plate before him. The smile died slowly in Michele's face. He sat staring at the old man. Suddenly he began to tremble.

The

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"To Michele !" cried old Ettore, and his shaking hand spilled the wine as he drank.

The third and last story in this series will be entitled "Americanizing Paolo"

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Pain of too poignant beauty fills the heart

Seeing rich dreams through some rare sunset drift,

Or when on lawns the summer shadows shift

In soft designs beyond Man's clumsy art

To emulate. Quick tears may almost start
When the anointed stars to heaven uplift

Their voiceless adoration, and a rift

Seems shining in the night where pale clouds part.

In hours like these what vast benevolence
Breathes through the world! O God beyond illusion,
Then we divine thou knowest our dark confusion,

With fervent answers soothing every sense;

And yet we feel-what pain-in the intense

Desire for thee to end thy long seclusion!

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A SECTION OF THE CANAL FROM GATUN LAKE TO THE ATLANTIC ENTRANCE

T

THE

PANAMA CANAL IN RELIEF

THE PHOTOGRAPHS ARE FROM MODELS MADE BY
THE PANAMA CANAL EXHIBITION COMPANY

HESE four bird's-eye views of the

completed Canal bring home vividly the reality of that vast undertaking. The first three might have been taken from an aeroplane traveling from Gatun Lake to the Atlantic entrance in Limon Bay. Number one shows in the foreground part of Gatun Lake, the great earth dam and the locks at Gatun, the spillway over which the surplus waters from the Chagres River are to flow, and, in the distance, the cities of Cristobal and Colon. West of these cities we can see a fleet of battle-ships. The old roadbed of the Panama Railway, which now skirts the farther shore of the lake, lies somewhere under the keel of the steamer sailing southeast toward the Pacific. The two schooners form the only element of unreality within the picture. No large sailing vessels will traverse the waters of Gatun Lake save under the control and direction of a tug. In the second picture the aeroplane in which we are supposedly seated has passed over the great dam, and the observer is looking backward toward the locks and the lake. One steamer has just entered the upper locks, a second has just departed for Panama, and a third, perhaps a great liner bound from San Francisco to Liverpool, is passing down the sea-level canal leading from Gatun to the Atlantic. The third picture shows the twin cities

whose combined names are a memorial to the discoverer of the western world. Το the left can be seen a dredge; through the middle foreground runs the line of the old French canal, and in the middle distance are docks, coaling stations, and the terminus of the Panama Railway. The fourth view shows the locks at Pedro Miguel, situated above and to the northwest of the small artificial lake at Miraflores. Almost in the center of the picture can be seen the huge emergency dams that are to stop the outrushing waters should the lock gates be blown up or otherwise disabled. If necessity arises, these structures can be swung out over the walls of the locks, just as a drawbridge is swung across a river, and the dams which they carry dropped almost instantly into position.

The Canal Zone contains about 436 square miles, about 95 of which will be under the waters of the Canal and Gatun and Miraflores Lakes. The cities of Panama and Colon are excluded from the Zone, but the United States has the right to enforce sanitary ordinances in those cities, and to maintain public order in them in case the Republic of Panama should not be able, in the judgment of the United States, to do so. Of the 436 square miles of Zone territory, the United States owns about 363, and 73 are held in private ownership.

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