heard hoarse shouts and many hurrying feet rushing to and fro on the deck above his head. Had it not been for the unmistakable notes of disaster the Spectator could have sworn that the watch on deck were dancing a breakdown. "The "The masts have been blown out of her," he told himself, "also she has struck upon a rock, and at the same time run into an iceberg. The noise I hear is the falling ice crushing in her decks, and the scuffling of feet is caused by the crew rushing for the boats, . . . but I do not care; she is not my schooner." Something stirred in the corridor without, and, slightly shifting his position, the Spectator saw his host in pajamas, studying

the chart.

The Spectator has been greatly interested in the behavior of the big ocean steamers encountered. Several, some of them mail steamers, have come miles out of their courses to greet the racing vessel; indeed, there is little doubt that friends ashore know more of how the race is going than any of the contestants. A liner sweeps up, reads the yacht's code flags, when her wireless report flits over long intervening sea-miles, perhaps to be received and wafted onward by another vessel two hundred miles ahead upon her course. One of these encounters was amusing; it was during a hard westerly blow that the schooner rapidly overhauled a British tramp steamer which was plowing along upon the same course. The skipper of the yacht, partly in a spirit of mischief, hoisted his code flags as the two vessels came abeam; with them he hoisted the signaled re

quest, "Please report." Inasmuch as the schooner was rapidly passing the steamer, this request was regarded by the British skipper as a piece of sheer Yankee impudence. In desperation he ran up the answering signal, "Go to Go to " the last essential word not being given in the international code.

It has been evident to the Spectator that ocean racing is somewhat of a strain to all concerned-a strain to the hull, the rigging, the nerves. The eyes of the skipper became puffy and red-rimmed ; deck. One day it became evident that if a sail flapped, the echo found him on the yacht was in the neighborhood of

ice; the temperature of air and water

fell, the water almost to freezing, the air a few degrees above. Shortly an iceberg was sighted looming through the haze, and this the skipper eyed resentfully.

"There!" he said to the Spectator, “I wish I'd never seen the cussed thing." Knowledge is power," quoted the Spectator, comfortingly.

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"Maybe; just the same, I wish that I'd never seen it. After seein' that, I don't feel like crackin' on at night."

inquired the Spectator, who had made a "But you will crack on, won't you?" study of the workings of this man's mind. Oh, of course, I'll sock it to her just the same; that's why I wish I'd never seen the cussed thing."

"I warned you that we might not win," the Spectator was reminded by his host, as the stanch schooner tore past Lizard Head-" but I was right in saying that we would probably have a fine sail."

"Win!" exclaimed the Spectator; “I feel as if we had won the Derby and the Grand Prix and the America's Cup. We may not have beat Atlantic, but we've beat the Atlantic Ocean, and that's the bigger antagonist of the two."

"Your kind words cheer my drooping spirits," replied the Spectator's host. "If we couldn't win the race, we've helped by giving the winner a warm chase, so here's to Atlantic and all swift Yankee schooners, and never mind about saying 'bottoms up.'"

NCE New York roofs were as others something for people to live under, not above. The rain slid down their gabled sides; the sun slanted over them to the ground, where grass grew; birds nested under the eaves of them. This was in the days when Father Knickerbocker's wife bleached her linen on the grassy slopes of Maiden Lane, while Father Knickerbocker himself bowled upon the green, of which only a triangular patch remains; then, and for some time after.

But one day the New York roofs got together and reared their heads among the clouds, driving back the sun's rays, offering a flat surface to the rain, sending the birds to other nesting-places. No grass was left for Father Knickerbocker's granddaughters to bleach their linen on; his grandsons must go miles

for a golfing green; while their children's playground is the pavement in the hot shadow of flat-roofed apartment rows.

No one will ever know who first saw possibilities in this flat and endless span of roofs-the top layer of New York.

Perhaps it was the East Side tenementer who one night took himself and a few bits of bedding out of the airless, over-peopled room where no sleep could come, climbed the dingy, creaking stairs, and stretched himself out on the warm tin roof, where he could have semi-pure air to breathe and a cool, dark sky to look at if he must lie awake.

Perhaps it was some inventive housemaid who found the area already full when she was ready to hang out her clothes on wash-day, and who thought to stretch a line from air-pipe to dumbwaiter shaft on the apartment roof; or

theaters; and very shortly afterward Madison Square Garden swung its Diana aloft and gave notice to the populace that there, in the heart of Manhattan, was a cool spot where fresh air was to be had at small cost, with a band concert thrown in.

A dozen years ago life was many degrees simpler than it is to-day. For the most part Manhattan Islanders stayed on their island of a summer evening, and sweltered more or less discontentedly on their brownstone doorsteps. Mere keeping cool was novelty enough to at

tract, and both Madison Square Garden and the Broadway theater roof were crowded nightly, which encouraged other theater-owners to follow their example.

But mere keeping cool could not satisfy long. New York was beginning to demand variety; and as the novelty of keeping cool wore off, and more roof gardens were opened, there came rivalry in the entertainment offered.

The band concert was varied with singing and other specialties until finally it came to be a regular vaudeville programme or a full-fledged musical comedy