open windows of the house, Ignatz discoursed high treason, law, and strategy to Jonas Mauditis's daughter. Their plan was made.

The koszes stood hot and waiting upon the fire that evening when Jonas came home, at seven o'clock. He fed Dewdrop, then bustled into the house, all confidence and self-gratulation.

"Precious, precious! A priest is not harder to fool in business than any other man, for all the robes look so fine, and send the cold chills down your back when you see him sailing about in them in the altar Sundays. God, a priest's only a common man when it comes to money questions. If anything, I say he is easier to cheat than wicked people because he supposes we all respect him too much to dare try it. But I'm a match for him, I, Jonas!"

“The police were here again this afternoon," Mrs. Mauditis contributed.

"They wrote down everything in the house, even the frying-pans and the cups," piped Joszie, removing a black rye-crust from his mouth to speak. "They never did that before. Maybe these police are smarter than any of those others."

"They looked smarter," Antonina added, a curious glint in her usually mild

eves.

But Jonas was above all warnings. He waved aside all doubts.

"Let us eat and have done with it," he said. "I have found another house, not so very far off. It is better than this, too, and not caving into the mines. Eat a good supper; then we will take out the fire a second time and let the stove cool, and begin to pack."

A step sounded in the shed. The door opened, and Ignatz came in. Jonas looked at him with cunning amusement.

"Hoh! You have no job to-night, boy? Why are you not at work?"

"I am not lazy, Jonas. You will find that I can do plenty, if it is necessary."

"God, he is not going to be left behind, cat-fashion, another time! The boy is smart, a keen fellow! Your health could not stand another spell of churchgoing, Ignatz. It would be terribly hard on you. Hoh, Ignatz chasing to three masses on Sunday, the pirate!"

"Sit down and eat with us," spoke Jonas's daughter, eyes downcast.

"I ate what was in my can. I am not hungry."

"Well, I am," bubbled Jonas, all eagerness. "I have a right to be, too. I have saved two months' rent on the priest, and all the kindling-wood that lay in the shed into the bargain. I'm glad to movę, now that the place is falling into the mines. Good, holy man, Christ save him! I'll teach him how to be a house-boss. I'll move every match and button out of the place before daylight, see.”

"Do you think so?" questioned Ignatz composedly.

"Nothing will happen. I know the laws. He will not come here and sit and watch the things from now till selling time. Maybe, if he was a sharp man, he might guess the plan I have made, and watch, and have me sent to jail for cheating. But no. He sleeps on the deepest feather tick in town. No danger."

The meal drew on, Mauditis himself talking continuously. Ignatz sat in the rocking-chair by the window. The women's conversation turned forebodingly upon soap powders and insecticides.

"Jonas, why don't you let me get married on your girl, there?" demanded the boarder suddenly, in English.

Mauditis stopped in mid-flow; his mouth fell open.

"I want her. She wants me. Now I want to fix it up in a hurry."

"Yes," said Mrs. Mauditis. "Better talk our language, though."

"She is young, young. Three or four years yet.'

"I won't wait."

"Neither will I!" cried Antonina.

"Mother of God! Does a girl talk that way to me when I have given her

her living free all these years? Is n't it time she worked and earned me some money? Well, well! God, she is impudent to her old father!"

"Forty-six years old last Christmas," supplemented his wife.

"That is all talk," Ignatz told him squarely.

"No such thing. No, no! I need her this moment. Antonina, wash these dishes. Then carry the chairs out to my wagon. You hear? Be spry. I will move out of here before midnight."

"Not move!" "Yes, I say!"

"You will not move. Alone, you can go if you choose. The things you brought here are held for two months' rent, twenty-three dollars; you paid one dollar at the beginning."

Jonas sputtered. "Me? Me not go? Why? Who will stop me? Hoh!"

"The house-boss will stop you," said Marovaikas very quietly. He got to his feet, and stood ready. Jonas was a heavier man than he.

"The priest? Oh, that is the game, is it, my little spy, my dirt-sucking Russian Jew? You'll help the smart police, will you, and save the priest his money, so as to get him on your side? Very pretty! Dear, dear!"

"It needs no police. I am not an informer. And you know if you are looking at me that I am a good enough fighter to lick you, single!"

Combat was the very elixir of life to Jonas. He came up heavily, eyes wild, arm unready from surprise at the turn affairs had taken, breath all devoted to stupendous oaths in mixed languages.

No sooner was he afoot than his prospective son-in-law felled him with a crashing blow on the mouth. Mauditis fell backwards, and struggled with his chair-legs, so that a few seconds elapsed before he was ready to continue the struggle.

The odds, curiously enough, had lengthened during those few seconds. Jonas apprehended the change in a

glance. Ignatz was armed with a miningneedle, a rapier-like rod of steel set in a wooden handle; moreover, he meant to use the tool. And behind, standing eight feet distant, with a short, shiny revolver leveled full at him, menaced his daughter, Antonina.

"I shoot you if you hit my fellow!" quavered the girl's voice in English. "Heh?"

"Don't you hit him!"

Mauditis returned to the attack vocally, but his feet and hands unaccountably failed to assist his effort.

"Be careful, girl," warned Ignatz. "Your hand shakes; if you shoot, try to shoot low and take him in the knees. Otherwise you might kill him."

"Then you would be hung!" Jonas added briskly. "That is the law in this country, and it will happen to you. I

know!"

Come on, Jonas. Fight if you are going to."

"What was it about?" parried the huckster cannily, his glance on the mining-needle.

"Do not quarrel about a house-boss," put in Mrs. Mauditis. "We don't know him."

"Yes we do!" cried Antonina.

"I tell you I will move, too!” shouted Mauditis, getting his grievance again in a rush. "I will pack in an hour! I will pack in a minute! And I will put you, tied, in the bottom of the first load, you cat-spawn!"

"You will not!"

To it they flew again, fighting savagely. At the end of a minute the elder man was down, bruised and bloody, beaten, while the conqueror sat on his neck and rubbed his chin on the flooring.

"Listen," panted Ignatz. "You will not move the things away till the houseboss gets his rent. See, I am your houseboss now! I bought the house off the priest, debts and all."

"True! It is true! I saw the paper!" shrilled Antonina, bending over the disordered supper-table.

her. The very man!" Jonas swore devoutly.

"Right. So it is settled?"

"Settled," cried the father.

"And the wedding will be this month, eh?"

"Settled also."

"Very good! You improve, Jonas. Now here is a fine offer for you: you live in my twelve-dollar-a-month house, and pay me no rent: I marry your girl and live in my house and pay you no board any longer. How is that?"

"Very good. Yes, Ignatz. Does that mean the two months' rent also? Or not ?"

"No, that is separate. You consent ?" "Yes, I consent. Oh, my bones are sore! Marry her as soon as you like, boy. You will have a pretty wife, too. Oh, make her put down that pistol, can't you, son-in-law? Women with guns are so uncertain, dear, dear! Yes, that's better. Oh, my poor bones, my old bones! Poor Rasa will live beyond his master, I should n't wonder."

Careless of possible reprisals, the successful wooer dropped his mining-needle. He strode over to the girl's side, put an arm around her, and gently took the pistol from her cold fingers.

"It is all right," he observed, smiling down at her. "The moving has stopped; we will live in one house now and have peace. If there is anything moved at all it will be the whole house on rollers, and very likely that will not happen. Kiss me, Antonina. Your father says that he will let you take me, and you can be married by the priest, after all."

now,

But Antonina, blushing, brought out her little confession.

"I know. Still, I was going to tell you, - If he licked you the alderman

-

would do about as well."

-

certainty to calculations, and thus favored the modest householder in preparing his budget, as well as the great capitalist in promoting undertakings which afford new avenues of employment to capable and ambitious young men.

All is changing in Mexico by reason of the progressiveness of the national administration, a remarkable example of patriotic paternalism,-and also because of the presence of men of various nationalities who have introduced new methods in mining, manufacturing, tropical cultures, transportation, etc. The contagion of these examples of enterprise has begun to affect even the great landed proprietors, formerly for the most part types of an ultra-conservatism, who now take a broader view of their lives and opportunities, and do not remain haughtily apart from the general business movement.

The telegraph, the telephone, and the railway, now penetrating so many once remote corners of the land, make it possible for the owner of huge estates to reside practically the year through at the state capitals or the City of Mexico. Thus has come about a somewhat intimate contact of the great territorial lords with the modern life of the cities. No longer looking on land as the one thing worthy of a gentleman's heed, the modern hacendado becomes a director in a bank, or sits on the board of direction of an industrial company. He also comes into relations with the clever lawyers of the cities, with noted engineers, financiers, and other people of the modern sort, who are accomplishing much in twentiethcentury Mexico.

The ownership of land will long be the ambition of all classes of Mexicans, from the ranchero to the well-to-do urban resident. Men of the new middle class, when they have acquired capital, often buy estates in the country. Thus they often come into touch with the old landed families, and the result is beneficial to the nation through the more general mingling of classes, of the new with the old. From the "arrived" middle-class man of

intelligence and enterprise, perhaps also of technical knowledge, the descendant of a long line of lords of the soil acquires information, comes to see that money can be invested in other ways than in mortgages and usurious loans, and learns that modern industrial undertakings have their special fascinations.

These matters have a direct bearing on the near political future of Mexico, for never before in the history of the republic have there been so many men interested in the conservation of public order. The new middle-class people have their “stake in the country," and the great landed proprietors have capital invested in undertakings which, ten or fifteen years ago, would have been regarded as out of the scope of a hacendado's legitimate activities.

The stability of Mexican institutions, the continued peaceful progress of the nation, are bound up with the new economic conditions and the broadening ideas of the wealthy landowners, as also with the easily understood desire of the middle-class people that there be no violent and ruinous changes.

So it is apparent that the Mexico of today must be considered in another light than the Mexico of the turbulent past. There are more elements that make for peace, a broader basis for a higher national edifice, room for more varied activities, a path open to talent, and the beginnings of thrift, which is a conservative force in all lands.

On Saturday, February 3, 1906, President Diaz, accompanied by Vice-President Corral, other officials of the government, and members of the diplomatic corps, as well as by Mrs. Diaz and a party of ladies, departed from the capital for Veracruz, en route to Yucatan, there to visit the recently reëlected governor, Lic. Olegario Molina. Important public edifices had just been completed at Merida, the capital of the State of Yucatan, and it was formally to inaugurate them that President Diaz was invited to visit