know, any mark to distinguish him from his fellows. He is probably a snide, on the whole, and if removed to one million times his present distance, which is the probable distance of the stars of the first magnitude, he would shine as only a star of the third of fourth degree. According to my reading this solar system of ours, that folks blow about so much, and talk as if a sun and moon were unusual things, may be one of fifty or a hundred millions a great deal like it.”

On reaching his room, where I found Ed. Leslie, Ned Fullum, and Harry Williamson, I discovered that his recent examination into celestial affairs had not weakened Statistics’ grip on his knowledge of mundane things. He was out of our conversation and was reading “Johnson on Nebulæ,” when one of us rashly stated that England was probably the most thickly settled country in the world.

“Stop her, Jim,” broke in Stis, “you are way off. England only has a population of 389 to the square mile. She’s second in the world, but Belgium rakes the pot. She can hoop up 451 to the square mile.”

One pay-day night, when we had all been off bathing our souls in lemonade and other liquid things, I ran across Stis at the Jeffersonian Billiard Hall. He was through playing, and was holding forth on the relative size of the earth, the moon, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune, and their respective appearance. His utterance was thick, and his eyes indicated an evening convivially passed, but his ideas were clear and his talk entertaining. It was about two A.M., and as we lived near each other, I finally persuaded him that we had better go home, and we boarded a Third Avenue car for that purpose. Before we had gone many blocks Stis fell asleep, but as we neared Eighth Street I awoke him. He had something rolled up in his hand, which I fancied was an astronomical chart, but the sequel proved that in the midst of his studies of the heavenly bodies, his heart was still true to the lands beyond the seas.

“What is that you’ve got there?” I asked.

“Jim,” he replied, “I wouldn’t take a thousand dollars for that. Fearful reduction in fares. Look here,” and deliberately opening the paper, he fixed his index finger on a particular line with great difficulty, and said: “Melbourne, Australia, two hundred and fifty-six cases.” It was a time-table and schedule of fares issued by the Pacific Mail Steamship Company, and he sometimes spoke of dollars as “cases.”

“It is a great pity,” I said, “that some of those rich duffers who don’t care a straw for foreign lands, don’t let you go abroad in their places. How you would enjoy it!”

He was preparing to leave the car, and in reply, stooped down and taking my hand, said, “Don’t give it away, but I am going. Years hence, Jim, we will meet again and woo the Circassian slave at the Junction of the Nile and Jigwater rivers.” With which observation he left me to continue my journey a few blocks farther on, and made his unsteady way across town to Broadway.

“Good-bye, Jim,” cried a well known voice, “I am off for Omaha.” I shouted back “Good-bye,” little dreaming that the speaker was in earnest. But I see by the personal column in the telegraphic papers that my old time friend has really deserted the scenes which have known him these many moons, and has cast his lines on the other side of the Missouri. God bless his genial face and gentle heart, and may the maximum of warmth and gladness cheer and make bright his future life. For whatever of flaw or frailty mar his sunny nature, yet has he in him something beautiful which puts men’s hearts in tune.