"H

BETWEEN HEROES.

ANG it all!" said the Novel Hero, "I envy you; I do, indeed."

"And why, my dear fellow," said the Play Hero, with that easy, well-bred air that you can see any evening for $1.50. "I do not find life such an Elysium." "You should," answered the Novel Hero. "Just think of it. You are always handsome. In fact you are seldom seen except in evening dress, with a bunch of violets or some other flower quite as costly in the lapel of your coat. You never say anything that is not real nice, the young ladies all rave about you, and you never get into half the real difficulties that I do."

"Yes, I believe the young ladies do admire me a trifle" said the Play Hero, arranging his moustache and brushing a fleck of dust from his real new looking trousers. "As for the difficulties and dangers, of course they cannot take me through shipwrecks and floods, and fires, and runaways, and that sort of thing, because I've got to wear good clothes and they might get rumpled or soiled. But I tell you I've been through many a duel, and they accuse me of all sorts of crimes and things. And they make me kiss the heroine altogether too often, and they always insist on my saying damn at least once in the play, and I don't believe in using such words."

"O, yes" replied the Novel Hero "I suppose you have your misfortunes, too. But just think of it. They make me anything they please. I've been all sorts of criminals, and I m usually so poor that I can't buy a cigar and they won't let me drink at all. Now you always get a chance to sip a little wine about the time you saydamn.' And they make me use bad grammar, and, by Jove, old man, its positively getting unbearable."

"Tut, tut, my dear fellow" said the Play Hero, "think of the young ladies who admire you, and weep over you, and all that sort of thing. Why, you have a perfect monopoly. They never see any one like either of us in real life."

'That's so," said the Novel Hero "I suppose we ought to be thankful."

"Yes, every one ought to be thankful," answered the Play Hero in that sonorous voice of his that you can hear for the same $1.50. "And you ought not to envy me at all. It's not heroic-and then we are both play heroes in a sense."

"That's also true," said the Novel Hero, "and there's seldom anything particularly novel about us, either." Tom Hall.

"HE SEEMS VERY SOBER TO-NIGHT. DID HE APOLOGIZE TO YOU FOR BEING DRUNK AT YOUR BALL?" "YES, HE SAID HE UNDERSTOOD IT WAS TO BE A FANCY DRESS AFFAIR AND HE CAME AS GAMBRINUS."